A Human Rights Watch report released on November 5 last year did not get enough attention from the local press, but its revelations were seismic. It uncovered a chilling truth about what really happened inside Parliament on June 25 last year.
While public reports and media accounts have consistently cited eight deaths along Parliament Road, HRW’s months-long investigation painted a far darker picture, suggesting that there could have been a possible massacre that occurred inside Parliament, largely hidden from public view.
According to the report, law enforcement officers killed 25 people within Parliament’s precincts. An hour before protesters breached the compound, law enforcement officers shot six protesters dead along Parliament Road and two outside the entrance to the Senate building.
Then, at about 2.32 pm, after demonstrators brought down the fence near the Intercontinental Hotel side, General Service Unit officers opened fire. Seven protesters were gunned down and their bodies dumped behind the mausoleum. Ten more were shot before protesters overpowered the officers.
At midnight, according to the report, bodies were secretly collected, and no one knows where they were taken.
To this day, families are still searching for loved ones last seen entering Parliament. It is highly probable that they are among those killed and their bodies hidden. The state appears to have gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal these crimes against humanity.
One crucial piece of evidence – Parliament's CCTV footage – could have opened the floodgates to justice. However, HRW’s report reveals that the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights attempted to obtain this footage, but authorities claimed the cameras malfunctioned that day.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission, where I serve, finds this excuse eerily familiar. When Albert Ojwang’ was tortured and murdered in police custody, authorities also claimed that CCTV cameras at Central police station in Nairobi had failed. How convenient that surveillance system always seem to fail when the state is implicated in extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances?
Civil society organisations have reported at least 63 deaths during last year’s Gen Z protests. Most placed the Parliament toll at under 10. But with HRW’s findings, it is now credible to say that those killed during the protests could exceed 100.
This intentional suppression of the death toll was a state strategy to quell public outrage. But even one life lost to police violence is too many. The possibility that more than 100 young lives were ended in cold blood, for simply demanding good governance, should jolt every Kenyan’s conscience, and all should take to the streets today to demand justice and commemorate the first anniversary of the June 25 massacre.
Still, this regime must be held accountable. It should release the full CCTV footage from Parliament recorded on June 25. That footage could help identify those responsible for the use of force and clarify the chain of command. It may also reveal whether the number of deaths exceeded the 25 cited in the Human Rights Watch report and complement the findings in the BBC’s Blood Parliament documentary, which linked law enforcement officers to protester deaths.
The leadership of Parliament – National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula and Senate Speaker Amason Kingi – must uphold their duty to the public. If access to the CCTV footage continues to be denied, it risks undermining public trust and delaying justice.
So, to Speakers Wetang’ula and Kingi: show the nation the Parliament CCTV footage from June 25. Let the truth be seen through those silent cameras.
