Protests take place almost a year after several killed and seized by Kenyan police in finance bill protests.Protesters took to the streets of Kenya’s capital Nairobi to express their fury over the death of a blogger arrested by police last week, as the country’s police watchdog reported that 20 people had died in custody over the last four months.
Police used tear gas to disperse crowds gathered close to the capital’s parliamentary building on Thursday to protest against the death of Albert Ojwang, a 31-year-old blogger arrested in the western town of Homa Bay last week for criticising the country’s deputy police chief Eliud Lagat.
Police had initially said Ojwang died “after hitting his head against a cell wall”, but pathologist Bernard Midia, part of a team that conducted an autopsy, said the wounds – including a head injury, neck compression and soft tissue damage – pointed to assault as the cause of death.
On Wednesday, President William Ruto admitted Ojwang had died “at the hands of the police”, reversing earlier official accounts of his death, saying in a statement that it was “heartbreaking and unacceptable”. Advertisement
Kenyan media outlets reported on Thursday that a police constable had been arrested over Ojwang’s death.
Reporting from the protests in Nairobi, Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb said that Ojwang, who wrote about political and social issues, had posted online about Lagat’s alleged role in a “bribery sca …