Kisii County Police Commander Charles Kases has said the planned demonstrations on Friday by two parties within Kisii town have been prohibited.
According to Kases, they had received two notices at Kisii Central Police Station and Nyanchwa Police Station by two groups seeking to hold demonstrations on April 19.
The Police Commander said they received the first notice on April 15 from Gusii Governance Watch who were intending to hold protests for three weeks consecutively.
“The application was within the legal requirement of three days’ notice period when one can make an application to hold a public meeting or demonstration and the request was granted,” he said.
Gusii Governance Watch claimed they were protesting against the unprofessional conduct of Kisii Governor Simba Arati regarding the ongoing investigations facing him including engaging in criminal activities, academic credentials forgery and mishandling county affairs.
“We would wish to urge the governor to honour sermons from investigating agencies, subject himself to court proceedings when required to do so and abide by the court ruling,” read part of the notice.
Kases pointed out they had also received another notice of intention to hold peaceful demos on April 16 from the Orange Democratic Party (ODM) officials who requested to protest for two weeks.
The ODM party’s notice indicated the protest was against the conduct and manner in which the area Governor was being handled by the security officials in the county.
However, the Police Commander noted the request from the ODM party was denied because it was contrary to Section 5, sub-section (4) of the Public Order Act which prohibits two public meetings from taking place at the same time.
“Upon analyzing both applications and due to security concerns, we have decided to cancel the first application from Gusii Governance Watch to prevent the protesters from the two factions from harming one another,” the police chief said.
Kases strongly reiterated that both protests from the Gusii Governance Watch and the ODM party remained outlawed and any kind of demos would be treated as illegal with the protesters facing the full force of the law.
