Kenyans must defend the right to protest in all legitimate forms and those who used pigs in the recent Occupy Parliament demonstrations are free to do so, just as those who choose other means have the right to express their views

Kenyans must defend the right to protest in all legitimate forms and those who used pigs in the recent Occupy Parliament demonstrations are free to do so, just as those who choose other means have the right to express their views

Following its rejection of CAL’s (Coalition of African Lesbians) application for observer status, L. Muthoni Wanyeki of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) petitions the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to ‘provide leadership in the protection and promotion of the human rights of sexual minorities in Africa’.

Following the visit of President Omar al-Bashir to Nairobi, L. Muthoni Wanyeki finds Kenya’s welcoming of Sudan’s president ‘unbelievable’.

Following the approval of Kenya’s new constitution, L. Muthoni Wanyeki discusses the constitutional referendum voting process, the road to the new constitution, and what must happen next to ensure the new constitution is observed.

The World Cup has come to an end and the vuvuzelas have gone quiet, leaving us to pause and reflect on South Africa’s month under the floodlights on the big sporting stage. L. Muthoni Wanyeki looks back on the competition and the respite it provided from the daily stresses life presents, whilst contemplating what the games have left South Africa and the rest of the world to move forward with into the future.

In the wake of a recent Amnesty International report on crime and insecurity in Nairobi's low-income areas, L. Muthoni Wanyeki discusses the problems of safety and the broader context of judicial and police deficiencies which produces them.

Uncertainty reigns around who was responsible for the grenade blasts that killed six people and injured several others at a constitutional meeting in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park, writes L. Muthoni Wanyeki. What is clear, however, says Wanyeki, is that the stakes of the 4 August Kenyan referendum are critically high for the perpetrators. Rightfully, Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission has focused on hate speech in the aftermath of the attacks, but can the crime be addressed with an ever-expanding electronic platform that remains unchecked?

A visit to a museum in Nigeria’s Kano state, the contemporary debate on ‘illegal immigration’ in the US and Israel’s attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla attempting to break the blockade on Gaza prompt L. Muthoni Wanyeki to realise how much her contemporary understanding of global ‘dynamics and tensions’ has overtaken her own ‘sense of history and its timelines’.

Malawian gay couple Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza have been sentenced to 14 years of hard labour, after a court found them guilty of sodomy, under criminal code provisions originating from the UK, writes L. Muthoni Wanyeki. ‘The law as it stands may criminalise sodomy and whatever the powers determine to be indecent’, writes Wanyeki, but ‘it is not the business of any state to determine how consenting adults derive sexual pleasure.’ What’s more, Wanykei notes, sodomy is not ‘a sexual practice unique to gay men’, and the right to privacy that heterosexuals currently enjoy should apply equally to homosexuals.

Anxieties and impatience over the deliverance of justice lie beneath the surface in Kenya amidst the International Criminal Court's (ICC) investigation, writes L. Muthoni Wanyeki. Wanyeki insists that witnesses and victims must be protected during ICC proceedings, and that this responsibility lies with the very government that failed the country.

Contrary to the expectation of voter apathy in Kenya’s constitutional referendum in August 2010, province-wide voter registration surpassed target numbers. Yet the unexpected participation could have a dark side, writes L. Muthoni Wanyeki. The apparent truism that those in opposition are easier moved into action could help to explain the high number of registered voters. This is troubling because misinformation abounds about the proposed constitutional clauses.

As part of his investigation into the country's post-election violence in 2008, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's visit to Kenya this week 'will be important symbolically – particularly in terms of how it is received and responded to by the relevant state agencies, departments and ministries', writes L. Muthoni Wanyeki. But will it secure the accountability needed to ensure that this never happens again?

Concerned by the resurgence of hate speech in Kenya, L. Muthoni Wanyeki decries the negativity directed at the Muslim community in the debate around the Kadhi's courts.

Following the African Commission's ruling in favour of Endorois claims on ancestral land lost during the Kenyatta regime, L. Muthoni Wanyeki argues that this success represents an important precedent and 'lays the ground for the slow process of renegotiating our very country'.

At the Nation Media Group’s recent Pan-African Conference in Kenya, L. Muthoni Wanyeki watched a distinct animosity between the African private sector and African civil society come to a head. She saw an African private sector rejecting any value of civil society and a civil society believing that the private sector could and should do more. She argues that a way forward needs to be found: 'We cannot work at cross-purposes forever and turn round and round on the same spot while all around us Africans die of hunger.'

While debate on Kenya's constitution could theoretically be open, L. Muthoni Wanyeki laments the lack of honest discussion around taking it forward.

As questions abound over a crisis at the heart of Kenya's grand coalition government, L. Muthoni Wanyeki argues that the coalition will hold, if only because of the absence of political alternatives.

Impunity in Kenya is ‘so deeply entrenched that it has become a sort of public office entitlement or perk’, writes L. Muthoni Wanyeki. But as yet another corruption scandal rears its head, Wanyeki calls for a more ethical response from the government, which demonstrates concern for how the public’s money is used.

If the African Peer Review Mechanism is not to degenerate into meaninglessness, writes L. Muthoni Wanyeki, Africa's governments, regional councils and citizens will need to revitalise its progress.