Old photos of crackdown on Kenyan sect falsely linked to anti-government rallies

“These photos from the quarry yesterday reveal shocking police misconduct,” reads the caption on a post shared on X on July 14, 2023.

Image

Screenshot showing the false post, taken on July 24, 2024

The post includes two images showing police using a stick to hit a man who is struggling on the ground as a dog bites at his trousers.   

The images have also been shared thousands of times elsewhere on the X platform, such as here and here.

Kenyan protests

The recent demonstrations in Kenya initially began in response to a tax-hike bill, but have since morphed into a broader expression of dissatisfaction with President William Ruto’s government (archived here).

According to rights groups, the protests that began on June 18, 2024, have resulted in at least 50 deaths and more than 400 injuries.

On June 25, 2024, after protesters stormed parliament, Ruto dropped the proposed tax increases – but protesters now demand his resignation and are furious over the police’s violent repression of the demonstrations. 

On the same day as protesters stormed parliament, social media was filled with rumours of an alleged massacre of civilians by the police in Githurai, a residential suburb northeast of central Nairobi. Unverified reports suggested that several individuals were killed by the police during the nighttime incident (archived here).

The discovery of nine bodies in an abandoned quarry near Nairobi in early July drew connections to the so-called "Githurai massacre", although police later linked the human remains to an alleged serial killer who is currently in custody (archived here).

However, the images shared on social media are unrelated to the quarry victims and the ongoing anti-government protests in Kenya.

Sect crackdown

Using a reverse image search, AFP Fact Check found that the two images were shared by activist Boniface Mwangi on his X account more than a decade ago (archived here).

Mwangi told AFP Fact Check that he took the photos in the Nairobi informal settlement of Mathare in 2007 during a “police crackdown on the followers of the Mungiki sect”.

Mwangi is a photojournalist who is also heavily involved in political activism.

In 2007, he was taking photos for The Standard newspaper. Mwangi shared more photos with AFP Fact Check from the incident that were not published at the time. 

The outlawed Mungiki sect consisted mainly of youths from Kenya's largest tribe, the Kikuyu  (archived here). The shadowy religious group had alleged historic ties to the Mau Mau uprising that was banned in the early 2000s after its members were linked to violent crimes.