Assault on human rights: When the government freezes artistic expression

The police action on Butere Girls High School drama students more than a week ago will go down in history as one of the most unfortunate assaults against freedom of expression by government forces in Kenya

Common during the one party state authoritarianism, such behavior has not been witnessed since enactment of the 2010 constitution.

Although artistic expression is protected by article 33 of the constitution, police officers without any provocation obeyed orders from the powers that be to tear gas the innocent school girls as they rehearsed the “Echoes of War” play they were expected to present at the national drama festivals competition currently ongoing in Nakuru.

After they were attacked and then called to perform the following morning, one school girl stepped forward, not as a performer but as a patriot.

Her message: "The only play we have for our country Kenya is the national anthem we just sang." With those words, she ignited a fire across the country.
“No slogans. No placards. Just dignity. Just defiance. This was not just a moment of silence. It was an indictment,” says Prof Gitile Naituli, a scholar and lecturer at Multi Media University.

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The student’s voice in the silent hall, was a statement on a country where student voices are silenced, where artistic expression is policed, and where the youth are increasingly being treated as threats rather than citizens.

Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka described it as a criminal act carried out by the government against its children, an affront against basic values of common decency and a direct vicious attack on democracy and the fundamental rights of the Kenyan people.

Speaking at the Second Mwai Kibaki Memorial Lecture in Nairobi Friday April 11, former Vice President told the gathering that such shameful transgression and abuse of the law could not have been tolerated by the former president when he was in power.

The constitution that was promulgated by president Kibaki on August 27, 2010, guarantees freedom of expression, a right that allows Butere Girls to perform their plays without fear or intimidation.

“The resolve of the courageous students of Butere Girls who sang the national anthem in the face of riot gear and arms has become our renewed symbol of hope. You, just like our Gen Z youth did last year are the true guardians of Kenya’s future. Bold, unyielding and principled,” said Kalonzo.

Scholars and literary critics are equally puzzled at what the current leadership intends to achieve from criminalizing creativity by young Kenyans when their peers across the world are deeply immersed in content creation as a source of livelihood.

In what could be described as a grotesque abuse of power, it was reported on Thursday night that the Kenyan government dispatched dozens of Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officers in five vehicles to arrest former Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala for writing and directing the satirical play.

Prof Naituli captured the saga well: “The play in question is not an underground manifesto or a call to insurrection. It is a literary piece—fictional, symbolic, and powerful—that critiques the culture of dishonesty within the current administration.”

“It was not banned, hidden, or forced into public view. In fact, it was celebrated and earned its place at the National Drama Festival in Nakuru,” he added. Others have also questioned what changed between the time it was approved to feature at all preliminary levels and the time its author became a target.

 The chilling answer according to Naituli is, the state has become allergic to critique. He says when satire is treated as subversion and storytelling becomes a punishable offence, then the country is being confronted tyranny.

 It should be a big concern to Kenyans that dozens of police officers can be mobilized at taxpayers’ expense to intimidate a former Senator and girls averaging 15 year-old over a play. It also  speaks volumes about the priorities of those in power..

Throughout Kenya’s history, from the days when Prof Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and compatriot Micere Mugo who taught at the University of Nairobi, satire has been used to not only shape the society but to also develop critical thinking in young minds.

It is also said to be a cornerstone of free societies, a means through which people interrogate the powerful, confront hypocrisy and imagine new futures.

“The current regime feels threatened by a stage production and that is both laughable and deeply disturbing. Let us be clear: satire is not sedition. Fiction is not fact. A play is not a coup plot,” says Naituli.

Former Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa who is providing legal representation to Butere Girls High School in Nakuru, argues that instead of allowing children to express themselves, president Ruto’s government is instead violating the constitution again and again by denying them rights.

“We are not talking about the Gen Z, this are the Gen Alpha kids. Children being teargassed and injured when they should be allowed to express themselves freely, not as a favour from the state but as a right,” says Wamalwa.

Opposition political leaders also fear that the repression now unfolding in Kenya against creative thinking will become the norm just like corruption that often goes unpunished, economic mismanagement that is rarely met with accountability and the threats to public safety that are unchallenged.

They say the government is not only meting out injustice but also sending a chilling message to artists, thinkers, and dissenters to stay silent or face its wrath, a sorry state of affairs that Kenyans should actively and gallantly fight against, because art cannot be silenced.

Every act of censorship only amplifies the message and voice that is being suffocated and every raid on a writer only gives their words more power. Every attempt to arrest a playwright only draws more eyes to the play.

Former deputy president Rigathi Gachgua was also baffled by the viciousness visited on innocent girls whose only crime was to perform a play that is critical to the government of the day.

“Even the colonial government that was very brutal never went for children.  We have seen a situation where there is a lot of panic because the one term reality for president Ruto is becoming more real to the extent that they are fighting form three and two girls.

“How fluid is this government, if harmless girls can bring it down? It also points to the weakness of the current intelligence services because when General Michael Gichangi was the NIS director in Kibaki’s government, this play could not have passed through all stages if indeed it was a threat to state security,” says Gachagua.

Outrage and calls for resistance have been loud across the political divide, including from the ODM party that recently entered into an informal alliance with the Kenya Kwanza administration. They have all urged artist to continue creating and citizens speaking freely.

It is also feared that the criminal justice system has been captured by the government, and must therefore be reclaimed from the hands of politicians who seek to use it as a blunt instrument of control.
In a country where censorship is growing bolder, the media getting harassment and journalist beaten like criminals and where dissent is met with brute force, the courage shown by the Butere Girls students is worthy every support to shake the conscience of the nation.

On an otherwise ordinary day in Nakuru County, what was expected to be a performance of Echoes of War turned into something far more revolutionary. The national anthem filled the auditorium—sung not perfunctorily but with solemn purpose—it was clear that this was no ordinary school play. There would be no costumes, no lights, no dialogue. Just truth.

Political history reminds the country that when the state turns its might against its children, it never ends well and that was the case from Soweto during the fight against Apartheid in South Africa to Sudan and the Tunisiat Arab Spring. It is the courage of young people who have turned tides and toppled tyrants.

“President William Ruto must take heed. This is not the generation of silence and submission. This is the generation of #EndFemicide, of #RejectFinanceBill, of digital protests and decentralized resistance. These young citizens are armed not with weapons but with wit, will, and a wild hope for justice,” says Naituli.

He further argues that what Butere Girls did was not a refusal to perform, but a performance of refusal. In their silence, they spoke louder than any megaphone and reminded Kenyans that patriotism is not blind loyalty to power but fearless love for country.

“Ruto may control the police. He may try to capture the courts. He may intimidate artists and detain activists. But he cannot arrest an idea. And he certainly cannot win a war against Kenya’s youth. To the Butere Girls, we say: Asante sana. You have reminded us that silence can be a weapon, that dignity can be an act of rebellion, and that the national anthem is not just a song—but a statement,” he added.

Prof Naituli also urges politicians accusing Malala of playing politics using school children, to read any of the following literary works, some taught in schools over the years, if they have not done so.

They include, John Lara’s The Samaritan (2022), Cleophas Malala’s Shackles of Doom (2013) – also staged by Butere Girls, Francis Imbuga’s Betrayal in the City, Nicolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector (1836), Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (1883), George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) and Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Micere Mugo’s I Will Marry When I Want (1970).

He sums up as follows: “This is about the soul of our society. Literature is not decoration. It is not entertainment alone. Literature is a mirror held up to power, to society, to all of us. It informs. It critiques. It preserves. It inspires. And above all, it provokes thought.”