Aisha Tukur
Actress Lupita Nyong’o has condemned the Kenyan authorities’ crackdown on huge anti-tax protests that began in June.
Demonstrators were met with police brutality, according to rights groups, with dozens of people killed and numerous others abducted.
Nyong’o, whose father was jailed and tortured under a former president, Daniel arap Moi, told the BBC: “It is chilling to know that this government is resorting to tactics that I had thought had been left in the past.”
In response, the government said it was not possible to compare two “very different” administrations and that it “regrets any death that occurred”.
But Nyong’o, an Oscar winner who grew up in Kenya but now lives in the US, said the government’s handling of the protests was “upsetting”.
“The more things change. the more they stay the same… I don’t know how this story ends,” said Nyong’o, who has starred in Hollywood hits like 12 Years a Slave and Black Panther, during an interview about her new podcast.
Her father, Anyang’ Nyong’o, is currently a county governor in Kenya and acting leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), one of the country’s main political parties.
The governing United Democratic Alliance (UDA) brought ODM politicians into the government in July, as part of a series of measures aimed at placating the protesters.
In the 1980s, Anyang’ Nyong’o, a political science professor at the time, was among a group of academics who organised against Moi’s regime.
Moi, in office from 1978 to 2002, ruled Kenya with an iron fist and ruthlessly suppressed his political opponents.
After Lupita Nyong’o’s uncle, also an activist, disappeared, the family fled to Mexico. Her uncle’s body has never been found, but according to local reports, the family believes he was pushed off a boat.
“I am deeply grateful for the younger people who are on the front lines fighting for a different Kenya,” Lupita Nyong’o said of this generation’s protesters.
Isaac Mwaura, spokesperson for the current Kenyan government, told the BBC that the authorities were “very co-operative with the protesters and acceded to the demands, including the president not assenting to the finance bill”. It was controversial tax measures in that bill that sparked the trouble.
As for reports that people were killed during the demonstrations, Mwaura said: “Only police statistics are official. The government regrets any death that occurred during the protests and anyone who may have caused such will be held responsible following the rule of law.”
