Thread by @MarigaThoithi

Short Thread

Re: King Kaka and the DCI.

People underestimate how state machinery is used by the government to silence people.

A few years ago after a few ominous phone calls, we pulled down articles we had published which were on Corruption and governance

We were working on pieces on corruption using publicly available information and what we were trying to do was to tie the dots and show the relationship between corruption scandals and certain individuals going way up including information we had gotten on company ownership

We published two articles and within hours the calls came in to each one of us individually.

These are not articles that necessarily stated anything new per se and they hadn't gained significant traction online. They had under 200 views.

But the calls started

And to each person in the team and they were pretty specific in threat level and in personal information.

I called a friend who called a friend who worked in intelligence and asked them whether it was a hoax. He checked and told us it wasn't.

He told us that every day there are calls like this made if people are seen to be creating problematic content, even at a scale that wouldn't make news in a local blog . It wasn't everyone being targeted and sometimes it was just on a random basis so people could spread the word

We did the math and we took the threats to our family members, mentioned specifically together with what they do, seriously.

It wasn't worth our lives or theirs so we took them down.

Talk to journalists too. They're threatened every day and stories that are killed with literal calls from state house and which media houses won't ever touch again.

No one talks about them but they're there.

Talk to people who have noticed corruption and decided to bring it up with their bosses because they think their bosses are ignorant about it 😂

My guy.

People forget that when people were complaining about PRV not being shown on mainstream media, news presenters and anchors were working with armed police in the studio looking over them, enforcing the government gag order.

People forget that the @privacyint report 2017 and the fact that it pointed out that the government has an office at a major Telco where it intercepts internet traffic directly from the ISP full day, every day.

Being in the Advocacy/media/activism space has made me aware of the sheer force of government machinery and how it works in the digital age.

Case in point, how a certain first lady caused drama somewhere and the videos were literally wiped off the internet and articles too

PEV*

#WajingaNyinyi is different in my opinion from previous songs it has been compared to. This isn't vaguely about corruption and mismanagement. It's hard hitting, public naming that artists haven't been able to/ have been afraid to do and it comes on the back of national dissent

Art is powerful. You might not recognise it but regimes certainly do. That's why musicians and artists in general are censored, killed, tortured and arrested worldwide.

They create conversation in ways no one else can and open up the public discussion.

There is currently widespread public dissent across the political divide and autocratic regimes are notoriously sensitive especially in a space where the economy is tumbling and they can't PR themselves out of a situation.

King Kaka's song is not just a song. He has managed to tie together our feelings about the government in 6 minutes and he has stopped giving a fuck and named the names and scandals which musicians are forced to ignore because media stations won't touch them and promoters too

The government can go down the criminal justice route through the police publicly like this, to make a public statement, privately through threats, they could come after you with KRA and suddenly you owe imaginary tax and endless other means. ..

Don't underestimate the power of art to intimidate autocratic regimes and don't underestimate the fragility of an incompetent leader who has been fighting the judiciary because they stood up to him and is trying to "discipline" dissenting leaders including his own party members

#iStandWithKaka and you should do and you don't have to do it because you like him.

Do it for your own self interest because once they are done with him, they will come for you.

#iStandWithKaka is also the reason why the government has worked hard to defund and to deligitimise arts education in Kenya and to make BA courses seem like a waste of time.

Arts and Humanities grow and demand critical thinking and expression and political awareness and learning

As the economy gets worse, expect the government to get less intolerant.

I would also like to remind you of the Allan Wadi, a then Moi University student who was followed all the way to Uganda and arrested and sentenced to 2 years in jail for abusing the president, in 2015.

He was eventually freed on appeal.

Allan Wadi was freed on appeal really quickly and quietly because of the number of laws that were broken in his arrest, torture and detainment. He also had no access to lawyers and his friends and family didn't know where he was until after he was sentenced. It was a mess

People are asking how a song can get you summoned by the DCI.

You forget people have been jailed for Facebook posts and tweets by this same government.

Speak up or you're next.

As the economy gets worse, expect the government to get more intolerant.

I have read this from the DCI and I'm hesitant to believe government narratives , paraphrasing Mutunga , I wouldn't believe the government if it told the truth by accident.

My thread still stands though. This government is autocratic.

The Kenyan government is also defined by its ability to lie.

The government has no shame and it uses lies, deligitimisation of individuals and online rumourmills and it's changed its mind quickly based on general sentiments multiple times before

You believe a government led by Crimes Against Humanity indictees.

I also wish I could talk about a recent news story that was declared as fake news and deleted from news sites including smaller blogs.

Lol this government operates on disinformation and deceit.

The conversation has now quickly morphed from the corruption scandals to who King Kaka is , his history, how he just wants YouTube views from his videos and how he is a fake revolutionary.

Government machinery working overtime.