From the June 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard
One of our members in Kenya was imprisoned last year for holding a meeting in a member’s house. Police descended on the house on 18 August demanding a licence for such a meeting as required (in their view) by law – although the law says nothing as such about holding meetings in a private residence (which is why they did not apply for a licence). Our comrade was sentenced to 6 months without the option of a fine. It took his wife a month to find out where he was jailed – it was the Nairobi Short Sentence Prison – and she had to bribe officials to find out. His relatives likewise had to bribe the prison warders now and then to ensure his stay was reasonably satisfactory. On his release on 12 December he sought to negotiate with the editor of a top newspaper to publicise his plight. This was refused but a brief reference to his time in prison was mentioned in the Watchman column of The West Winge Sunday Nation (17 December) but no mention was made of the reason why he was imprisoned. Our member has pointed that to try to obtain any documentation from the prison authorities would be “courting trouble”. Prisons in Kenya operate in secrecy and committal warrants are the property of the government.
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