Men sit on a motorcycle next to a fire burning, during a demonstration over police killings of people protesting against the imposition of tax hikes by the government, in Nairobi, Kenya.Bill Eugene Omollo was walking home after dark in his Nairobi neighbourhood on June 20 when he spotted trouble – two men eyeing him next to a parked white pick-up without number plates.
Organised online and leaderless, the protest – initially a call to repeal tax hikes – has developed into a movement that has cut across Kenya’s traditional ethnic divisions, becoming the biggest threat to William Ruto’s two-year-old presidency.Though Ruto withdrew the tax increases in a victory for the movement, the heavy-handed reaction to the protests – campaign groups have documented hundreds of arrests and at least 39 deaths – has raised fears of rights backsliding.