My tutor on socio-linguistics once told me to always contemplate on the intended consumer of anything I propose or write since the public will always gauge my solemnity or triviality through the interpretation of the words I conjure.
I wish the consultant who coined the words in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) vision and mission statement cautioned the executors equally so. The ODPP’s states that its mission is to provide an impartial, innovative, efficient, and effective prosecution service, as stated on their official website. This mission is part of their broader vision of being a just, fair, independent, and people-centred prosecution service.
I don’t need to cram the whole mission statement but the words ‘innovative’ and on the same aptitude pick the words ‘people centred’ from the vision statement. Very interesting words which depict an institution motorized by modern and professional ways of transacting official business, unless after all, it’s just cliché.
It’s alarming that there are over 100 protesters being arraigned in court following the recent Gen-Z inspired and powered protests on a charge, so serious that it is associated with Osama Bin Laden, Boko Aram, and Isis, Al Qaeda, Al Shabab and many other proscribed entities who instill immense fear not just locally but globally. In summary and reference to no specific legal point, terrorism points out to aggressive acts of coercion on large scale, mass destruction of public and private property, application of extreme violence meted on civilian populations. All these is based on fanatic ideological inspiration and obviously against the written rule of law within the specified jurisdiction.
The question would be, did the youth led protests be argued to have reached such a magnanimity? Heavens no! You mean in Kenya we have people in the same league with Osama Bin Laden of Al Qaeda and Abubakar Shekau of Boko Haram, so lethal and evil that the ODPP have ‘innovatively’ and from a ‘people centered’ approach felt obliged to charge prefer that grave charge, a preserve for the imps and felons of the society?
While the state has the responsibility of protecting lives and property, restoration and maintenance of the rule of law and order, the response and actions must also be within the law. This stretches from and up to the point of arrests, investigations and preferring of charges and actual prosecution.
The bill of rights in the Kenyan constitution cushioned the protesters from exercising their rights to move out of the abodes and air their grievances. Article 36 accords Kenyans the right to associate and therefore that does not in any way make them a terror group. Article 37 grants the right to assembly, demonstration, picketing and petition and this can be within the rights explicit in article 38 to engage in politically toned actions. It is therefore baffling that citizens who acted on powers granted by their own constitution are now being accused of going against it.
The explanation by the ODPP that such incidents qualify as terrorism under Sections 2 and 4 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which define terrorism as actions intended to disrupt essential services, intimidate the public or government, or instill widespread fear is not convincing.
In what seems to be a signal to stop the trend, the Chief Justice has told the ODPP that her visit to the torched Kikuyu Law Courts on 26th July and her subsequent statement that the burning of the court could have been an act of terror was for the particular context and therefore not a blanket justification for the ODPP to apply the terrorism charge as he wishes. This is a very important piece of advice which the ODPP should use and withdraw all those loathsome charges preferred on Kenyan Protesters.
If anybody was in conflict with the law, let them be charged accordingly but charging protesters on terrorism related charges suggests a case of misuse of power or manipulation to do so.
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