Protests in the Kenyan capital Nairobi intensified on Thursday, with vehicles set ablaze and police firing teargas to disperse crowds angered by the death in custody of a political blogger last week, Reuters TV footage showed.<\/p>\n
The death of 31-year-old Albert Ojwang, who blogged on political and social issues, is the latest case to throw a spotlight on the country’s security services, who have been\u00a0accused of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances for years.<\/p>\n
Police used teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters in the capital, with at least two vehicles set on fire, Reuters TV footage showed, a day after President William Ruto said Ojwang had died “at the hands of the police”, reversing earlier official accounts of his death.<\/p>\n
Police had initially said Ojwang was arrested in western Kenya on Friday for allegedly defaming the country’s deputy police chief Eliud Lagat, online and died “after hitting his head against a cell wall.”<\/p>\n
The Independent Policing Oversight Authority watchdog has launched an investigation, while the European Union and the United States have called for a transparent probe into the blogger’s death.<\/p>\n
Protesters demanded Lagat’s resignation on Thursday, with some carrying Kenyan flags and chanting “Lagat must go”.<\/p>\n
The blogger’s wounds, including a head injury, neck compression and soft tissue damage, pointed to assault as the cause of death, according to pathologist Bernard Midia, who was part of a team that conducted an autopsy.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Police Inspector General Douglas Kanja apologised for the police having previously implied that Ojwang died by suicide.<\/p>\n
“Based on the report by IPOA … it is not true… He did not hit his head against the wall,” Kanja told a Senate hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Protests in the Kenyan capital Nairobi intensified on Thursday, with vehicles set ablaze and police firing teargas to disperse crowds angered by the death in custody of a political blogger last week, Reuters TV footage showed. The death of 31-year-old Albert Ojwang, who blogged on political and social issues, is the latest case to throw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,32,2362],"tags":[111,1395,490],"class_list":["post-16591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-economy","category-featured","tag-kenya","tag-nairobi","tag-william-ruto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}