Every day in Kenya, children miss school, parents lose jobs, and older persons remain confined to their homes, not because they lack strength or determination, but because they lack something as basic as a prosthetic limb, a wheelchair, a hearing aid, or crutches.
East Africa is experiencing a profound digital shift. Governments are digitising services, innovators are deploying new tools, and citizens generate unprecedented volumes of data every day. Yet the same systems that promise inclusion and efficiency also raise new risks — shrinking civic space, expanding surveillance, algorithmic bias, and fragmented regulatory frameworks.
Nairobi, 23 February 2026: The Law Society of Kenya and Amnesty International Kenya commend the swift, coordinated action taken yesterday, Sunday 22 February, by officers from the Lukenya and Kyumbi Police Posts, DCI Kyumbi, and other national and county security and government agencies. The action led to the rescue of Tanzanian human rights defender Mshabaha Mshabaha Hamza and the arrest of three suspects involved in what appears to have been a violent, premeditated abduction and forceful rendition to Tanzania.
After seven months of silence since his July 2025 abduction, political activist Mwabili Mwagodi returned to the headlines this week. His court arraignment, followed two days later by the full acquittal of university student David Oaga Mokaya, shines a stronger spotlight on the misuse of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act and of the international Interpol Red Notice system to stifle political expression.
This column is more personal than usual. This week’s Commission on Administrative Justice (Ombudsman) ruling in the case of Coldstone Investment Ltd. Vs. Khaleej Towers Ltd. created a buzz in my home and several neighbourhoods negatively impacted by building and planning violations.
I recently visited an Arid and Semi-Arid Land (ASAL) county and spoke with a teacher from a day secondary school. What I experienced will forever be ingrained in my memory. I wondered how and why the only secondary school in a sub-county would have a dismal performance with a mean score below 3 in the national examinations, while similar day schools performed well in the 2025 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.
Lest We Forget: Chapter II is a powerful survivor-centred magazine by Amnesty International Kenya that documents lived experiences of police brutality, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and life-altering injuries in Kenya. Through deeply personal testimonies from families, survivors, and witnesses, the magazine humanises statistics and restores dignity to those whose lives were violently disrupted by abuse of power.
The phrase “family values” has been the subject of vexed and emotive debates in Kenya, Africa, and globally. A curious inquiry into its origins reveals a nexus among moral standards, social structural order, religious beliefs, and economics. A scan of its evolution in the twentieth century depicts individuals and groups rushing to rectify the deterioration of morals, aiming for an ideal they imagined: the nuclear family.
After months of seemingly endless waiting, the Gender‑Based Violence Technical Working Group’s report has finally reached the Presidency. What exactly have they proposed, and how do we ensure those recommendations translate into real action?
JOB TITLE: Section Director
After eight transformative years of service, Irũngũ Houghton will conclude his tenure as Executive Director of Amnesty International Kenya in June 2026.
While progress seems limited in many parts of the world, this year’s Data Privacy Conference demonstrated Kenya’s growing maturity in digital governance. Two areas emerged as needing our attention: data governance in the security sector and election management.