By Billy Mijungu
As Kenya continues to navigate an era of heightened civic activism, the debate around safety, public order, and the right to protest has never been more urgent. The need to criminalise the public carrying and display of crude weapons, including stones, machetes, clubs, and other improvised tools of violence, is no longer just a policing concern. It is a national necessity.
Article 37 of the Constitution of Kenya guarantees every person the right to assemble, demonstrate, picket, and petition public authorities peacefully and unarmed. It is within this constitutional right that thousands of Kenyans have taken to the streets over the years, voicing economic, social, and political frustrations. However, the spirit of this provision is often undermined when assemblies are infiltrated by individuals armed with stones and crude weapons, turning peaceful gatherings into volatile confrontations.
There is no ambiguity in the Constitution. The right to protest is pegged on being peaceful and unarmed. Stones, crude machetes, sharpened metal rods, and other rudimentary weapons are not only a threat to public safety but an outright violation of the constitutionally set limits of civil action.
This calls for a law that equates the public display and carriage of such weapons during protests or public assemblies to the same degree of seriousness as carrying a firearm in similar circumstances. Under the Penal Code and Firearms Act, unauthorised possession or brandishing of guns is punishable by heavy sentences including imprisonment. Yet today, individuals wielding clubs and throwing stones at security officers or fellow civilians during demonstrations often go unchecked or face minor charges.
The call is not to suppress the right to protest but to protect it. By drawing a firm legal boundary around the carriage of crude weapons, we can preserve the sanctity of public assemblies, distinguish peaceful protesters from violent infiltrators, and uphold national security.
Moreover, the law should extend to regulate the manufacture and commercial distribution of such crude weapons.
It must be specific that outside private household self-defense or justified night mobility, possession of such tools in public, particularly near mass gatherings, should warrant arrest and prosecution. Anyone found in possession of such weapons should bear the burden of proving intent.
It is no longer tenable to let mobs hurl stones at police officers and still claim to be exercising constitutional rights. Stones maim and kill. Just as the law regards a bullet as lethal, so too must it treat the hand-thrown stone in the same category when deployed against another citizen or public officer.
For Kenya to mature in her democracy, peaceful protest must mean exactly that. Peaceful and unarmed. Criminalising the public display and use of crude weapons is not an assault on freedoms. It is a step towards reclaiming them.