By KPC Reporter
More than 190 civil society organisations have condemned what they describe as escalating intimidation and attacks against civic actors in Kenya.
The groups singled out The Institute for Social Accountability (TISA) and its Executive Director, Diana Gichengo, as among the latest targets of the alleged crackdown.
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In a joint statement issued on Monday, 194 organisations accused the government of presiding over a shrinking civic space marked by surveillance, harassment, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and the use of alleged state-sponsored goons against activists and accountability advocates.
Among the prominent signatories were the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), Amnesty International Kenya, Transparency International Kenya (TI-Kenya), Katiba Institute, Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA Kenya), Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI) and the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU).
The groups said they were witnessing “a chilling regression towards dark-era police-state tactics” targeting defenders of public finance integrity and democracy.
“TISA is the latest defender of democracy to come under attack – an attack we believe has been instigated by this government,” the statement said.
The coalition cited several incidents, including the disruption of a June 12 meeting at Nairobi’s All Saints Cathedral involving civil society actors working on public finance management.
According to the statement, individuals described as state-hired goons invaded the meeting and later allegedly admitted they had been sent by powerful government officials.
The organisations also alleged that Gichengo has been subjected to weeks of surveillance and road harassment by occupants of tinted Subaru and Prado vehicles.
They further claimed that on July 2, at least 13 suspected state security officers attempted to gain access to TISA’s offices while demanding the identity of a lawyer employed by the organisation.
The coalition linked the incidents to what it termed a broader pattern of repression against human rights defenders, citing the deportation of Open Society Foundation official Brian Kagoro, the continued absence of KHRC staff member Martin Mavenjina, and the alleged abduction and torture of several activists following demonstrations marking the first anniversary of the June 25, 2025 anti-government protests.
“This is not law enforcement; it is organised state-enabled terror against citizens exercising their constitutional rights,” the organisations said.
The groups argued that the deployment of armed, masked and plain-clothes officers operating in unmarked vehicles had become “a defining feature of the assault on Kenya’s civic space.”
They demanded immediate investigations by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the National Police Service and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) into the alleged surveillance, office raids, enforced disappearances and attacks on civic actors.
“We refuse to be cowed into silence,” the coalition declared, adding that “no amount of black suits, unmarked cars, or state-hired goons will roll back the democratic gains won by the blood and sweat of the Kenyan people.”
The organisations also called on Parliament’s Departmental Committee on Administration and Internal Security to conduct urgent hearings into the alleged harassment of civil society groups and to summon key security officials to account for the operations in question.
The statement comes amid heightened scrutiny of security agencies following recent allegations of enforced disappearances, police brutality and attacks on activists during anti-government protests and civic engagements across the country.
