“The fear is gone.” Beatrice Waithera, national leader of the Red Vest Movement, says that is the lasting change from June 2024, when young Kenyans pushed into the grounds of parliament over a finance bill. Two years on, she says the anger has not gone anywhere either.
On Thursday, the anniversary, riot police were deployed in strength across Nairobi. Reporting for DW, the crowds that gathered were mostly young, and they spoke of the same things they raised in 2024: jobs, the cost of living and how the country is governed.
Names and flowers
Commemoration was the point for many. Youth activist Brian Otieno called Thursday “our greatest day,” and said supporters planned to honor “the comrades who died.” They would arrive with flowers, he said, adding that the government “should prepare to give us security.”
At least 60 people died during the protests, according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, a body the government mandated. The first was Rex Masai, a 29-year-old activist, in June 2024. Businessman Kevin Mwangi recited others: Denzel Omondi, Eric Shieni, David Chege, Erickson Mutisya, “and the many who disappeared.”
Mercy Wanjiru, a university student, said people planned to change their online profile pictures to Masai’s and those of others killed by police. “You cannot kill us and lead us,” she said.
Who led it
Nobody, by design. Waithera told DW that organizers had to work quietly because public gatherings were under scrutiny. The effort was discreet enough that President William Ruto ended up joining one of the spaces on X to address the protesters himself. Students, young professionals, gig workers and first-time demonstrators all took part, and the movement spread through social media and local networks rather than parties.
Politicians have tried to pin it on the opposition or on known activists. Waithera pushed back, saying the movement “was larger than Boniface Mwangi, was larger than me.” Mwangi, a rights and anti-corruption campaigner who has said he will run for president, was not there when parliament was occupied, she noted.
Unanswered demands
Families and rights groups continue to press for investigations into alleged excessive force. Waithera says the institutions are stacked against them. “The judiciary is captured, the executive is captured and the National Police Service is captured,” she said.
Ruto recently promised compensation for the families of the dead but did not apologise. Waithera said no sum could repay the loss, and she asked why he had not apologised nationally. She would like a national conversation similar to the healing after a war.
Her last point looked ahead. “We are angry and we are going to the ballot with it,” she said, referring to Kenya’s 2027 general election.
