Protests erupt in Nairobi over death in custody of young blogger

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Kenyan protesters clashed with riot police on the streets of Nairobi on Thursday during a spreading national outcry over the death of a young blogger in police custody.

Demonstrators gathered on the road to the national parliament after officials reversed initial police claims that the death in a police cell of Albert Omondi Ojwang, a popular young social commentator, was from self-inflicted injuries.

Ojwang was arrested in his hometown in Homa Bay, western Kenya, a week ago after allegedly publishing defamatory information about the country’s deputy police chief on social media. He was later transferred to the central police station in Nairobi, 400km away, where he died.

His death on Sunday has reignited public anger at Kenya’s long history of extrajudicial killings. Several young activists “disappeared” during protests against government attempts to increase taxes to service public debt last year.

The incident also coincides with a trend of worsening state repression across much of east Africa as governments seek to silence dissent.

Kenya’s police said Ojwang had been arrested for “false publication” and claimed initially in a statement that he had died “after hitting his head against the cell wall”.

But state pathologist Bernard Midla directly contradicted that account after an initial postmortem, saying that “head injury, neck compression and other injuries spread all over the body” pointed to assault as the cause of death.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, which has launched an independent investigation after examining Ojwang’s body at the mortuary, said the case highlighted “a wider, deeply troubling pattern of deaths and abuses in police custody”.

President William Ruto has since acknowledged that Ojwang died “at the hands of the police”.

“As we mourn his passing, let us patiently but vigilantly follow the progress of the investigations without making premature judgments or drawing conclusions,” Ruto said.

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority, the police watchdog, is investigating Ojwang’s death and has named five police officers who arrested him in Homa Bay County before escorting him to Nairobi.

“We are committed to ensuring that everyone who was involved in the crime is brought to justice expeditiously and that no interference from any quarter is brought to bear on the investigation,” interior minister Kipchumba Murkomen told the Senate.

The case has caused outrage among human rights activists and young Kenyans who gathered near parliament on Thursday, demanding that those involved be held accountable.

The protests coincided with the presentation of the national budget in parliament, scene last year of massive, spontaneous demonstrations against the finance bill.

Finance minister John Mbadi is seeking to avoid a repeat of last year’s deadly protests, by raising revenues to narrow Kenya’s debt-to-GDP ratio of nearly 70 per cent without directly raising taxes.