A fresh battle over Azimio protests has landed in court, with the government being sued for a colonial law it used against those alleged to be the organisers.

The case seen by The Standard challenges Section 77 of the Penal Code, which makes it a crime to either plan or be involved in disobeying authority. 

Some of the Azimio leaders who were charged with subversion include Embakasi East MP Babu Owino and his Mathare counterpart Anthony Oluoch.

The controversial law being used by the Kenya Kwanza government to tame Azimio is a colonial relic borrowed by successive governments from Britain. It was introduced in 1960 in Kenya to deal with those who were opposed to the colonial government. It was also used during the Mwakenya trials in the 1980s. 

The colonial law provides that anyone found guilty of subversion should be jailed for a period not exceeding seven years.

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• Government sued over colonial law used to prosecute Azimio leaders

The Law Society of Kenya, Katiba Institute, Kenya Union of Journalists, International Commission of Jurists, Bloggers Association of Kenya and Africa Center for Open Governance have filed the case challenging the retrogressive law.

Others are Article 19, Kenya Human Rights Commission and Tribeless Youth. Lawyer Joshua Otieno Ayika has been enlisted as an interested party. He was charged before Makadara Law Court over his tweets. 

He was accused of uttering words that are prejudicial to Kenya’s public order and security. Mr Ayika was further accused of posting subversive words which were allegedly calculated to cause panic and chaos among Kenyans.

In the case, the lobby groups’ lawyers Bosire Bonyi and Ochiel J Dudley argue that Section 77 is incompatible with the 2010 Constitution as it shields those in government from criticism. Bonyi and Ochiel assert that the section also silences anyone who is interested in public affairs. By Kamau Muthoni, The Standard

Dear Mr President,

It is nearly three years since your staff called me twice to State House Entebbe in September 2020. That was 10 days after a friend told me State House was looking for my phone number so that you could meet me.

At the first invitation, you later directed that I come even if my Covid-19 results had been delayed. Although I came on the assigned date and time (with negative Covid-19 results), you attended to many other engagements till late, and promised to call me again. I left a number of documents for your study and to ease our anticipated discussion. 

After four days, you invited me to come the following day. Your staff told me on phone, “His Excellency would like to have lunch with you tomorrow.”

Again, later, an abrupt programme made you stop me, promising that we would soon have an occasion to meet. Since then, I have not heard from you. Attempts to send you a reminder have been futile, hence the decision to channel this letter through a public platform; otherwise, there is no disrespect aforethought in this action.

I would like to inform/remind you that I personally had made several futile attempts to meet you since 1996, especially as regards assignments/memoranda I had agreed to before the start of the Luweero Triangle war, early 1981, and which I executed beyond expected scope and targets.

(Clandestine study groups at Makerere University soon sprouted into more groups outside and overt mass organizational work across the country in tens of secondary schools, colleges and rural and urban adult communities.) 

In 1982, my father aged 65 left his wife and the rest of the family in Mbarara district to Mubende district in Luweero Triangle, staying in ekibaasi [makeshift grass-thatched tent] for years, returning after the war ended. The son he had migrated with left him after three years and joined the rebel army.

Strictly sticking to the key aspects of the unwritten memorandum of 1981, I have never lodged any complaint in public to enable me access you, even as I have been in the media for many years. I do recall a certain resident district commissioner in western Uganda (not my home district in Mbarara) in 2004 telling me how you asked him about my whereabouts that year when he mentioned my name in your presence.

“Where did that young man disappear to? I used to hear a lot about him in the public realm, but how did he disappear from the public radar?” he quoted you as having said.

When I was called to the National Honours and Awards Chancery (under the Office of the President) in Kampala to pick my invitation card to attend the Tarehe Sita day celebrations at Kasese in 2012, staff there narrated to me a story.

They said my name had been brought to the chancery by senior UPDF officers from the Office of the Commander in Chief; that the officers apologized for the delay in years to award me with a national medal and said I should be patient for a bigger, deserved and customized reward.

I attended the said Tarehe Sita day celebrations in Kasese where I received the Nalubaale Medal of Honour, with nothing else attached, not even transport refund. And as I requested in one of the documents I left at State House, I need a second meeting to introduce to you an elderly man from Kabale district that has a lot of lofty issues to tell you regarding the destiny of Uganda and Africa, as per divine revelations, with photographic evidence, which he has repeatedly had since 1974.

He even has specific roles for you to play in a gigantic and historic undertaking. It’s my prayer that this letter comes to your visual or reported encounter and elicits your due considered action. I am anxious to know what you wanted to tell or ask me in 2020. The Observer

Thousands of refugees and survivors of trafficking could find themselves homeless after a Home Office policy change, charities have warned.

Until last month, newly recognised refugees and survivors of trafficking had 28 days to find alternative accommodation after receiving a “notice to quit” before being evicted from Home Office accommodation they had lived in while officials were processing their claims – but this has now been reduced to a minimum of seven days.  

Charities had called on the government to extend the notice period for eviction to 56 days, arguing that 28 days did not give people long enough to find new accommodation, get a job or access benefits.

While councils have an obligation to provide emergency accommodation to families with children, adults who do not have children may not be eligible for that support and are at risk of finding themselves homeless.

The Guardian spoke to one woman who is a survivor of trafficking and who has been granted leave to remain by the Home Office. She was living in a two-bedroom flat with her 13-year-old daughter, who she says is settled at school. While she welcomes the Home Office granting her leave to remain, she said: “I was shocked the Home Office only gave us seven days to find a new place to live. My hands are still shaking. 

“We started packing but we don’t know where we are going. We know council housing waiting lists are very long. Things were stable and now they are messed up. I haven’t been able to close my eyes and sleep since I got the eviction notice. My daughter has been crying and asking if she will still be able to go to school.

“I received the eviction notice on Monday last week and we were evicted [on Monday 14 August]. I just had to leave most of our belongings behind. We had to go to the council as homeless and the council didn’t tell us until 5pm [on Monday] that we were going to get any accommodation.

“We are in a hotel room in the same area as the Home Office accommodation but if we get moved again my daughter might not be able to go back to the same school in September and I might not be able to continue with the university course I am doing. The Home Office took six years to make a decision about my case and then they evicted me within a week.

“Having only seven days feels like just seconds. I have gone through a lot with what happened when I was trafficked and I am very vulnerable. We need more time to sort everything out.”

Zoe Dexter, of the Helen Bamber Foundation – who is supporting the woman and her daughter – condemned the new Home Office policy and warned that it will lead to a big increase in homelessness. She said: “People want to move on from asylum accommodation and start rebuilding their lives, but they need a reasonable amount of time in order to do this safely.

“Seven days is simply untenable and puts thousands of survivors of trafficking and refugees at increased risk of homelessness, destitution and exploitation as they face eviction with nowhere to go.”

The Home Office has been approached for comment.  By  Diane Taylor, The Guardian