For over a decade, Kenyans have buried protesters, treated life-changing injuries and watched cycles of violence repeat on our streets and in our communities. A new draft Freedom of Assembly Bill offers a chance to break this pattern. What does it get right, where does it depart from previous bills, and what must be strengthened to ensure that demonstrations are protected, not punished?

While all elections produce both winners and losers, the real loser in Ol Kalou was not UDA's candidate, but the State itself. The giant ants who feasted on Ol Kalou are on the move. Unless we remain vigilant and active, they will carry corruption, violence and impunity into every corner of our beloved Republic next year.

A growing number of cases before Kenya’s courts show that state institutions created to protect our environment and wildlife are enabling their destruction as amendments to critical safeguard laws are introduced. Unless this is changes, the judiciary may be the last line of defence against state-led environmental destruction. This column is co-written with JustAct Executive Director Akshay Vishwanath.

What is more astonishing? Seven citizens allegedly abducted, unlawfully detained and tortured after a march honouring victims of police brutality on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture or the Interior Principal Secretary insisting no enforced disappearances have taken place under President Ruto’s administration?

Now firmly etched in the national conscience, the second anniversary of 25 June 2024 was thankfully commemorated without fatalities and few injuries. The mothers of those we commemorated once again turned private grief into another historical moment of national resistance.

Listening to the State House speeches and reading the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Reparations Framework, I agree with transitional justice expert Tina Alai’s observation. While the moment is significant, it is not yet historic. What clarity does the Framework offer victims and a nation traumatised by state violence and what must the State do next?

The violent disruption of a public procession and arrest of nine environmentalists including a former Chief Justice on the 8 June elevated the proposed development in Nairobi National Park to international public attention. As the matter heads to court later this month, what is at stake, and what would a win–win outcome look like? This column was co-written with JustAct Executive Director Akshay Vishwanath.

Thursday’s arrest of Nairobi’s Urban Planning Chief Officer Patrick Analo Akivaga, a wife and the seizure of tens of millions hidden in his Syokimau home read like a movie script. While his conduct has long attracted public concern, this moment must not be reduced to wrongdoing of an individual. We must also focus on the deeper systemic and relational failures that enabled him to thrive at City Hall.

With 16 Utumishi Girls Academy students dead and 74 injured, the nation reels from another horrific tragic incident. As feminists are forced to organise another public memorial this coming Madaraka Day, what it would take to keep all Kenya’s women and children safe.

The midnight home arrest of Officer in Charge of Police Station Dishon Angoya during another week of protests, perhaps not wholly surprising, was still unsettling. What does it reveal about how state power is being exercised?

As the primary accountability season nears, politicians suddenly pick our calls and patterns sharpen. How does last week’s Senator Nyamu address, a youth poll, and this week’s by‑election connect and why do all parties in power need to pay attention?

Following the most compromised election in the history of Tanzania last year, Samia Suluhu’s comments at the business conference this week were hard-faced, honest and habitual. Sadly, she represents a troubling new breed of politicians who threaten violence against their own youth with disturbing ease.