I was arrested for helping Kenyans email parliament

On Friday May 30th at around 2pm, I was illegally arrested by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) while at an event in the capital, Nairobi. My crime? Developing a website that enabled Kenyans to submit memoranda to the Kenyan parliament on the 2025 Finance Bill, which contains the government’s revenue and taxation proposals.

The platform was designed as a civic tool to help citizens exercise their constitutional right to petition government officials and voice their opinions on public policy. According to the police, however, I had disrupted the national assembly’s systems by sending mass emails. That’s despite the fact that the emails are user-generated and tied to an individual's email address and IP. If the national assembly received many emails, then they came from real, actual Kenyans. In any case, it was not the first time such a system had been built. I remember sending my memorandum of objection to last year’s Finance Bill using a similar emailer.

On the afternoon of my arrest, the officers came to the venue, called me by name, and, after a bit of a commotion, whisked me into an unmarked Subaru vehicle. In Kenya, unmarked Subarus are often used by plainclothes officers during operations and have gained a controversial reputation due to their frequent appearance in cases of alleged abductions, forced disappearances, and unlawful arrests. Three Subarus – full of men and at least one woman – came for me that day.

The choice to arrest me on a Friday was also deliberate. By law, an arrested person must be presented before a judge as soon as possible and after no more than 24 hours. However, police use Friday arrests as a punitive measure since one typically won’t be taken to court until the next working day, usually Monday, meaning you spend the weekend in jail. In this case, Monday happened to be a public holiday, so the earliest I would see a courtroom was after three days.

The officers who came for me knew where my house was and took me directly there. I was forced to open the door. They came in and grabbed my electronics including my computer, hard drive, flash discs, and smartphone. They even rummaged through my studio looking for a PlayStation console that they alleged I had. I don’t own one.

I was then taken, via a long circuitous route, to the DCI headquarters, suffering constant verbal abuse along the way. When we got there, I was asked to write out a statement. I told them I didn’t know what they wanted me to say and it was only at this point, three hours later, that I was informed of the reason for my arrest.

 “Just doing your job?” I wondered. Your job as an enforcer, a lackey to be used by the powerful to oppress law-abiding citizens? To abduct, torture, kill, is that part of your job description?

It had been an afternoon of many emotions: fear, shock, sadness. I came close to crying during the verbal assault. But I felt a huge sense of relief after they told me what they had arrested me for, because I knew I hadn’t done anything illegal or criminal.

“We’re just doing our job,” the officers told me. “Just doing your job?” I wondered. Your job as an enforcer, a lackey to be used by the powerful to oppress law-abiding citizens? To abduct, torture, kill, is that part of your job description? Are you proud when you go to bed at night after a long day of surveilling, abducting, killing?

I was then locked up in a cell at the Pangani Police Station. It was my first time in jail. I walked in and looked at the four walls with slits for windows and said out loud, “Gosh, is this a cell then? Hivi ndio inakaanga?” (Is this how it looks from the inside?). There were two other ladies. I sat hugging my knees to my chest, reflecting on the chaotic day I had just had. Feeling all alone. Imagining my parents dragged out of their daily routines to take care of my children. Worrying about my children. Not knowing where the money for legal fees would come from. I kept thinking of these words from the Star Wars series, Andor: “There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy… Remember this: Try.”

When does it end?

I am writing this on Tuesday June 10th. It has been exactly one week since I was presented in a Kenyan court of law to answer to trumped up charges. We are living in difficult times in Kenya. This past Saturday, a 31-year-old teacher, Albert Ojwang, was picked up from his father’s house in western Kenya, and driven nearly 400 kilometres to the DCI headquarters. His supposed crime? Tweeting that Deputy Inspector General of Police Eliud Lagat was involved in corruption. By Sunday morning, Albert was dead, his body bearing the signs of a brutal beating. The results of his autopsy are painful to read. Blunt force trauma. Strangulation. Defensive wounds.

Why must I be the one to fall silent or run? Why can’t they apply that pressure to the government to stop abducting and killing ordinary Kenyans?

Albert died a painful death. I see news clips of his father crying and can’t help but get a clear image in my mind that this could have easily been my father. My family was the one in front of cameras just last week. It’s jarring. It breaks my heart. I can’t stop crying.

There’s a lot of pressure from some quarters for me to leave the country or to go silent, but why must I be the one to fall silent or run? Why can’t they apply that pressure to the government to stop abducting and killing ordinary Kenyans? If someone highlights a corrupt officer’s activities, must they pay with their lives? If I make it easy for Kenyans to perform their civic duty, must I be taken away from my children for four nights?

Last week’s newspaper front pages had my picture. This week’s had his. Who will grace next week’s cover? When does all this end?

In the face of this, ordinary Kenyans have been compelled to speak out and to remind those in power that Kenya’s constitution is centred on the will of the people. This movement is not limited to Gen Z or social media influencers; it reflects a collective awakening across the country. And perhaps that’s what unsettles the ruling classes. They’re not used to being questioned by the very citizens they govern.
If anything, I am now more emboldened. My tweet about the civic email website had only around 5,000 views prior to my arrest. Now even my non-tech savvy family members know how to use it. I have more ideas to implement, and I am even more motivated to see them through.

I will continue performing my civic duty until Kenya is free. It can feel overwhelming but we must resist. We must try. Because silence is how tyranny survives.