Kenya’s Human Rights Crisis: Report exposes a year of crackdowns, abuses
HRW links last year's threats to probe 16 civil society organisations (CSOs) funded by the Ford Foundation over claims that they were funding the protests as among the avenues applied to silence civil society.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) World Report 2025 has painted a bleak picture of Kenya’s human rights situation over the past year, noting that the country’s human rights trajectory has deteriorated.
The Kenya-focused report, themed "A Year of Reckoning," highlights how authorities restricted the right to peaceful protest through heavy-handed crackdowns on nationwide demonstrations against the high cost of living.
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"The authorities failed to address the socio-economic causes of protests and instead harassed, intimidated, and arrested protest leaders, activists, and civil society groups accused of supporting the protests. President William Ruto publicly threatened the courts for making decisions unfavourable to his administration. The authorities have rarely investigated or prosecuted law enforcement officers implicated in human rights abuses," the report, published on the organisation’s website, states.
It adds that as the protests reached fever pitch in the week starting June 18, the protests morphed from opposition to taxes imposed on goods such as bread, menstrual products, and services like mobile money transfers used by many informal workers to include government waste and corruption and a worsening neglect of public services.
On June 25, protesters mainly aged between 18 and 35 invaded parliament where they were met with police brutality as "police shot directly into crowds, killing protesters and bystanders."
"The authorities have continued to track down people believed to be protest leaders or one of the estimated 3,000 protesters involved in the parliament invasion. Several of these people have either been arrested or abducted by suspected security agents then forcefully disappeared."
The report cites the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR)'s report released on June 31 that revealed that at least 60 protesters had been killed by the police and 66 others abducted.
The number has since gone up as the report notes that the crackdown on perceived government critics continues.
"The authorities have yet to investigate or prosecute anyone for these crimes. Kenya has a history of police brutality and a lack of accountability for serious abuses by security forces. Requests by several of the United Nations special rapporteurs, including the rapporteur on the right to freedom of assembly and association and the rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, to visit to investigate abuses have been pending approval from Kenyan authorities for years," the report states.
At the same time, it says senior government officials publicly threatened the justice system, civil society and the media all of whom played a key role in mitigating the impact of the events that happened last year.
HRW links last year's threats to probe 16 civil society organisations (CSOs) funded by the Ford Foundation over claims that they were funding the protests as among the avenues applied to silence civil society.
It also linked mainstream media's decision not to livestream the protests as part of the rights abuses recorded last year.
"In July, some media outlets reported that the authorities summoned their editors and threatened them over live coverage of the protests. Kenyan media subsequently stopped the live coverage of the protests. President Ruto said he had the power to shut down media over the live coverage of protests but he opted not to do so," notes the report.
It also cites the high rate of cases of violence against women in the country, similar reports released early this year noted that 2024 marked the worst year for women in Kenya following increased killings of women.
"Violence against women and girls, including high femicide rates, remains prevalent in Kenya. Approximately 13 women and girls are murdered each week and 130 cases of sexual violence are reported each week," notes the document.
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