The generation Z led by Kenya entered a critical junction in 2025 after the entire movement took a year of protest. The protests started as spontaneous mobilizations of the young people in response to increasing living expenses, rising levels of inequality, and endemic levels of corruption, and since then, they have come to become one of the largest civil uprisings in the country since the country returned to multiparty democracy in the 1990s.
On the first anniversary of the first June 2024 protests, tens of thousands again took to the streets on June 25, 2025 to activate the economic demands and demand transparency in government.
An initially decentralized, but mostly peaceful movement was suppressed with an increasing amount of force. Security agencies fired all sorts of crowd-control technologies live ammunition, tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets at least 19 confirmed deaths, more than 500 injuries, and several reported cases of sexual violence occurred. Human rights groups have reported 15 cases of forced disappearance and frequent use of excessive force as being a planned effort at criminalizing dissent.
Expanding Use of Anti-Terror Laws Against Protesters
Legal reaction to the unrest by the Kenyan government has created a very controversial approach: utilizing the terrorism charges against the youth protestors. Under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2012 authority has charged at least 75 people with being terrorists, as well as robbery with violence and arson. There are increased legal authorities with such charges, the detainees may be detained without trial up to 90 days, and be subjected to harsh bail conditions, and seizures of assets.
Legal Tools Framing Youths As National Threats
Within this framework, the majority of the arrested people are not only described as lawbreakers, but also existential threats to the state. Officials of the government such as the interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen have been on record to sanction police orders on the shoot-on-sight policy, and the remarks of president William Ruto on shooting protesting crowds in the legs have only emboldened the security agencies. Official rhetoric has changed its address tone to less deterrence and more retribution undercutting standards of proportionality in law enforcement.
Detention Conditions and Judicial Delays
Human rights groups are cautious that the extensive use of laws against terrorism may avoid important legal protections. Others who are arrested are indefinitely imprisoned, receive minimal legal counsel, and re- arrested after bailing. This has succeeded in making counter-terrorism laws to be the instruments of political repression instead of national security.
Legal Ambiguities and the Cost to Human Rights
Jurists who represent arrested demonstrators refer to the legal landscape as being in a legal grey zone. They point to frequent delays, unavailability of complete case files and cases being reprosecuted under new sections as their cases were being tried on bail. These are practices that are against constitutional rights and international human rights standards.
The Social Impact of Being Labeled a Terrorist
The stigma that the charges of terrorism have on the lives of young Kenyans is extremely harmful in the long run. Scholarships are lost or students are thrown out of school and employers are still reluctant to employ anyone with a terrorism case pending prosecution. These compounding impacts institutionalise social exclusion, particularly among people in low-income or marginalised communities who are already susceptible to institutional discrimination.
Cases That Reveal Systemic Overreach
The arbitrary nature of some terrorism charges is illustrated by high-profile cases, such as the case of 22-year-old Veronicah Mbindyo who was arrested after she posted a video of the protests to social media. Her situation, and many others, highlights the fact that a judicial system that is increasingly considering digital dissent a criminal offense is promoting the ability of anti-terror laws to stretch into cyberspace.
Escalating Violence, Enforced Disappearances, and State-Sanctioned Intimidation
With this crackdown on protests escalating, the state-related militia and criminal gangs attacking demonstrators have increased. Independent observers and eyewitnesses note that these groups frequently liaised with law enforcement–have ransacked houses, whipped demonstrators and threatened medics and reporters on the ground.
Death Tolls and Extrajudicial Practices
There have been more than 125 recorded protest related deaths since mid-2024, with the majority of the deaths being in major cities such as Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa. Forced abductions and detentions have been done by security officers in unidentified vehicles, which in most cases, are masked or unidentifiable. Previously, such maneuvers were exclusive to counterinsurgency operations, but are now seen to be a routine part of protest suppression.
Legal Orders Ignored by Security Agencies
Several court orders requesting release of captives or transparency of policing have been ignored. Such court disobedience has caused increased apprehension that the executive is bypassing constitutional checks to turn to authoritarian emergency powers. Kenya National Commission on Human Rights still requires autonomous inquiries into the abuses, even though not effectively applied.
Impact on Kenya’s Democratic Space and Civic Society
Kenya has long been regarded as one of the stronger democracies of East Africa, yet in the current circumstances, there is a strong indication of a major withdrawal of civic freedoms. There has been a rise in surveillance and harassment of civil society bodies, as well as the tightening of the registration procedure of NGOs. Protest is now being constantly confused with insurrection, and freedom of assembly is being more treated as a privilege rather than a right.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International Warnings
According to Otsieno Namwaya of Human Rights Watch, there is a blurring of the line between policing and militarization and he warns that such a trend is a threat to the principles of democracy. The same Amnesty international Kenya has raised concerns regarding increasing cases of prosecuting peaceful assembly under terrorism legislation nullifying the actual meaning of the action and undermining the rule of law.
Perceptions of Democracy Among the Youth
The polls in mid 2025 indicate that almost 63 percent of the young people below the age of 30 feel that the government no longer holds to accountability of citizens. Many are increasingly doubtful about elections, police and court systems- questioning why social cohesion is falling away and why other more radical means of expressing political views are becoming attractive.
Emerging Narratives and the Road Ahead
Despite the crackdown, the Gen Z movement is still seen to be resilient. Through online fundraising campaigns, dozens of detainees have gotten their bail. Digital platforms are still active with organizing calls and evidence collection, and create a parallel ecosystem of youth-led activism beyond conventional political systems.
The redesignation of dissent to terrorism is a radical change to the way Kenya is dealing with domestic unrest. As much as the state continues to argue that the issue of security takes precedence over other issues, the social costs are on the rise. Using the anti-terror laws, the government is likely to establish a generation gap based on distrust and oppression rather than civic participation and understanding.
The situation in Kenya raises wider questions about the limits of counter-terrorism frameworks when applied to civil protest. As elections near in 2027, and as regional democracies contend with similar youth-led uprisings, Kenya’s trajectory may serve as a test case for how states navigate protest, participation, and public order in the digital age. The world is watching how a generation raised in the shadow of digital resistance navigates a system now willing to define their activism as terrorism.
