Kenya has been placed on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, a global consortium for civic freedoms, amid growing concerns over human rights violations.
The cited incidents include the June 25 anniversary and Saba Saba protests.
According to the civil society, Kenya is among six territories experiencing a rapid decline in respect for civic freedoms, affecting the work of activists, journalists, and other government watchdogs. The other countries listed include the United States, Turkey, Indonesia, Serbia, and El Salvador.
The development follows Kenya's downgrade in 2024, after police used lethal force to quell anti-Finance Bill protests, resulting in more than 60 deaths countrywide. "The government's response to peaceful protest has crossed a perilous threshold," said Ine Van Severen, Civic Space Research lead at CIVICUS. "The systematic nature of the repression shows a deliberate strategy to criminalise civic engagement and silence dissent." In December last year, CIVICUS downgraded Kenya's human rights rating from "obstructed" to "repressed", the second lowest in a scale of five which rates 198 countries from "open" to "closed".
