As the sun sets on a highly electoral year, we cannot resist but reflect on the highs and lows of 2022. Our #ChambuaUongozi campaign took #AmnestyKwaGround to empower citizens to engage political aspirants across 69 wards. We continued to protect the freedom of expression and those persecuted for exercising this freedom. We noted a 39 percent drop in extrajudicial killings. Unfortunately, 18,988 households remain homeless a year after the December 2021 evictions in Mukuru kwa Njenga.

Incoming Inspector General Japeth Koome whipped up his first dust storm. His and other public comments may indicate possible direction policing could take next year.

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the creature of the United Nations charged with collecting and collating scientific, technical and socio-economic data on climate change, has bad news for Africa. Their reports show that despite Africa being least responsible for the burning of fossil fuels causing climate change, she will bear the brunt of the detrimental effects.

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Today marks 74 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. The enduring lesson for us all is when one generation fails to promote and protect human rights it will always negatively impact the next generation. The other is that we must find new financial, inter-sectoral and inclusive ways to organise our freedom.

The world is midway through the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. The recent conviction of Moses Gatama Njoroge provides the clearest example of why the annual awareness campaign is so important.

A delegation of Ukrainian leaders was in Nairobi this week. Listening to their experiences over the last nine months, I wondered whether we had become too numbed by our own experiences as a continent to care enough.

With the 49-member Presidential Working Party on Education Reform completing its public consultations this month, it is time to look at the state of disability rights in our schools and places of learning.

Amnesty International has raised human rights awareness and financial support for community-based human rights defenders through public musical concerts for the last fifty years. Amnesty International Kenya has organized several concerts with partners to amplify artists’ voices in promoting human rights, connect young people to the human rights movement, build solidarity, nurture actors, and advocate for human rights using music and spoken word poetry.

The fourth Police Inspector General of Kenya was sworn in yesterday. As Japhet Koome assumes office, what might he find in his in-tray and which opportunities could he seize to deepen human rights-based, professional policing and access to justice for all?

Kenya’s rebirth in 2010 was a reincarnation of the one we inherited in 1963, which was, in turn, a reincarnation of the one set up by the British in 1895 when they occupied Kenya and 1920 when the Kenya colony was founded.