Wandayi demands justice for Rex Kanyike following fatal shooting

The Star Kenya

National Assembly Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi has called for swift action in the fatal shooting of a protester in Nairobi on Thursday evening. https://shorturl.at/56dS5

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00:00I wish to, on my own behalf and on behalf of the Azimil fraternity in the National Assembly,

00:10send our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the fallen youth, Rex Maasai.

00:24As you are aware, this young man was killed literally in cold blood by the police last evening,

00:34during or in the aftermath of the peaceful protests over the discredited finance bill 2024.

00:46We take great exception to the blatant abuse of police power to stifle the exercise of

01:02personal rights by peaceful Kenyans.

01:07It was really unnecessary for this young man to die in the manner he died,

01:12if the police would have cared to follow the law.

01:15These young boys and girls were a threat to nobody.

01:20They were not a danger to peace.

01:23And it was evident from the time they started to demonstrate up to the time it ended.

01:30They were unarmed. They remained peaceful.

01:35And it was basically the police that subjected them to all manner of torture,

01:43including being subjected to water cannon, tear gas, police truncheons, name it.

01:53So we must condemn the strongest harms possible.

01:57The blatant abuse of the police by those who are in charge to basically stifle civil rights

02:11with impunity.

02:13So we are treating Rex Maasai as a martyr, as a hero who has died in the cause of the fight

02:27for human dignity and freedom.

02:32Indeed, the death of Rex Maasai is only comparable to that of Steve Biko in 1977 in South Africa,

02:42in apartheid South Africa.

02:45So what the apartheid police did to Steve Biko in 1977 is what the Kenyan police have done

02:52to this young man, Rex Maasai, in 2024, under a new constitutional dispensation in the Republic of Kenya.

03:02So we shall demand, of course, that those who are involved, the entire command structure

03:09and the person who holds the trigger are brought to book in the shortest time possible.

03:17We don't want to hear any excuse whatsoever.

03:22And let us also advise the police of those who are involved and those who give directives

03:33that these things will come back to haunt them.

03:38The law will catch up with them in the fullness of time.

03:42They may think that they are operating under some kind of cover, under some kind of protection.

03:47But when push comes to shove, when the time comes, when the hour of reckoning beckons,

03:57they will be left to defend themselves alone.

04:01I can assure you.

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