A Kenyan court on Thursday approved a decision to send in the military as police backup as protests continue over a controversial tax bill that the government has vowed to withdraw.
Although armored vehicles were seen in the city, the court ruled in the evening that the deployment authorized by parliament was lawful, given the outbreak of violence during the protests, which the police have failed to control.
The court rejected an appeal from a law association.
Hundreds of protesters stormed parliament on Tuesday and set fire to part of the building.
However, Justice Lawrence Mugambi also warned of a “dangerous trend” that could lead to militarization of the country. He also said that deploying the army could intimidate the population.
“This could potentially silence the citizenry from protesting what they perceive to be unfair tax policies imposed by the government, and could also drive a wedge between [the] military and civilian population,” he said.
He therefore demanded that the government provide accurate information on the scale and duration of the operation within two days.
There was a tense atmosphere in Nairobi on Thursday.
Protesters planned to march to the State House, the president’s official residence Willem Rutobut that was not possible because the police had blocked off the access roads. Police officers and soldiers were stationed throughout the city.
The streets around parliament were also cordoned off.
The first demonstrators gathered around noon in central Nairobi, where many shops were barricaded. Television footage showed police using tear gas against the crowd and shots were heard.
Demonstrations are also said to have taken place in other Kenyan cities.
In Kenya’s third-largest city of Kisumu, in western Kenya, several hundred people marched to the presidential lodge, another official residence of Ruto, where they gathered for a peaceful sit-in protest, the Nation newspaper reported.
According to one protester, violent criminals mixed with demonstrators in Mombasa and tried to loot shops. “They have nothing to do with us,” the protester told television station KTN.
Violent scenes have erupted over the past week as thousands of people joined protests against the tax bill, which was intended to ease Kenya’s high public debt.
According to the demonstrators, the measure would impose unaffordable tax increases on ordinary citizens and businesses, which are already burdened by the high cost of living.
Ruto said in Nairobi on Wednesday that he would not sign the bill into law after clashes led to a number of deaths.
