Keypoints:
- Amnesty says Kenya weaponised tech against protesters
- Troll networks pushed threats, lies and misogynistic abuse
- Activists report disappearances linked to surveillance
KENYAN authorities orchestrated a far-reaching campaign of tech-enabled harassment, intimidation and surveillance to silence young protesters between June 2024 and July 2025, according to a new report by Amnesty International. The organisation says the government and allied groups systematically weaponised online platforms to undermine digitally organised dissent and erode the rights to expression and peaceful assembly.
The report, titled This fear, everyone is feeling it, documents what Amnesty describes as a ‘coordinated and sustained’ strategy to crush protests led largely by Generation Z. Young people mobilised nationwide in opposition to corruption, rising femicide cases and a highly contentious set of new tax measures. Amnesty argues that digital repression became central to the state’s response.
Gen Z protests met with escalating digital intimidation
The protest wave began in June 2024, when young Kenyans under the age of 28 launched the #RejectFinanceBill movement against new taxes on essential goods and services. Demonstrations spread across 44 of Kenya’s 47 counties, including major turnouts in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. Social media platforms played a crucial role in communication, fundraising and documenting abuses in real time.
But Amnesty says authorities quickly deployed online intimidation, targeted surveillance and hate campaigns aimed at shattering the credibility of protest organisers. According to the report, at least 128 people were killed, 3,000 arrested and more than 83 forcibly disappeared across both the 2024 and 2025 protest cycles.
Amnesty argues that digital harassment was not a by-product of unrest but a deliberate state tactic designed to justify arrests, discredit organisers and create a climate of fear.
State-sponsored trolls weaponised online platforms
A key element of the repression, Amnesty says, involved large-scale troll networks aligned with the government. These groups worked to manipulate algorithms, plant disinformation and drown out protest messaging.
‘Our research proves these campaigns are driven by state-sponsored trolls,’ Amnesty states, describing individuals paid to spread pro-government narratives and harass critics.
John*, a digital campaign operator interviewed by Amnesty, described being part of a 20-person network paid between 25,000 and 50,000 Kenyan shillings per day to promote state messaging on X (formerly Twitter). During major demonstrations, the group produced real-time counter-hashtags to derail protest trends — including flipping the widely used #RutoMustGo into #RutoMustGoOn.
Threats, misogyny and AI-generated abuse
Human rights defenders (HRDs) were among the most heavily targeted. Of the 31 interviewed, nine said they received direct death threats via X, TikTok, Facebook or WhatsApp during the 2024 wave of protests.
‘I had people coming into my inbox telling me, “You will die and leave your kids,”’ said Mariam*, a Mombasa-based HRD who was forcibly disappeared for two nights.
Women involved in both the Gen Z protests and the #EndFemicideKE campaign reported facing intense misogynistic abuse, including body shaming, threats of sexual violence and AI-generated pornographic images designed to humiliate and silence them.
‘It’s an attack on our voice, on our bodies,’ said Sarah*, one of several young women harassed online.
High-profile journalists targeted
Prominent Kenyan journalist and human rights defender Hanifa Adan, who is of Somali descent, faced racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic attacks that labelled her a ‘foreigner’ and ‘a Somali terrorist’. Amnesty says the harassment intensified after her appearance in the BBC documentary Blood Parliament, which investigated the shooting of protesters on June 25, 2024.
In April 2025, a wave of posts under the hashtag #ToxicActivists attempted to discredit Adan and other activists as corrupt or foreign-funded. ‘Being targeted every single day … it took away who I was,’ she told Amnesty.
Surveillance fears and Safaricom’s denial
Amnesty’s investigation found that several activists believed they were tracked through Kenya’s telecommunications infrastructure, with interviewees alleging that clandestine police units accessed location data via Safaricom. Many of those who suspected they were being monitored were later forcibly disappeared.
Safaricom rejected the claims, saying it releases data only through legal processes and adding that its systems cannot track live locations.
Government response and Amnesty’s demands
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen dismissed the allegation of state-sanctioned digital harassment, saying: ‘The Government of Kenya does not sanction harassment or violence … any officer implicated in unlawful conduct is subject to investigation.’
Amnesty argues the opposite. The organisation says both state authorities and relevant corporate actors have failed to investigate credible reports of tech-enabled harassment and unlawful surveillance. This failure, Amnesty warns, has created a widespread chilling effect that threatens democratic participation.
The organisation is calling on the Kenyan government to end digital attacks on peaceful protesters, dismantle troll networks and halt smear campaigns that portray HRDs as ‘foreign agents’ or ‘paid activists’. It also urges authorities to investigate enforced disappearances, unlawful killings and surveillance linked to the protests, and to compensate victims and the families of those killed.
Names changed to protect identities.
