Taped Shooting Of Protester Rattles Kenya, Violence Continues

As promised, Kenya’s opposition party is holding protests around the country. Also as promised, the protesters have been met with hostility by the police. A video of a police officer shooting to death an unarmed protester added further fuel to the violence. Now a national strike has been called for by the opposition. Below is a roundup on the protests and violence in Kenya today:

CBS News is reporting: “Violence has again engulfed Kenya, after television video showing police shooting a young, unarmed anti-government protester to death enraged opponents of President Mwai Kibaki. According to opposition leaders, at least seven more people had been shot and killed in the Mathare slum early on Thursday, and a 5-year-old boy in the Kibera slum was wounded in the leg, CBS reports. Both sprawling slums are in Nairobi. The video shows a lone policeman chasing a handful of unarmed young men down a side-street in the town of Kisumu. The policeman is seen firing and two of the men fall. The policemen then kicks one of them.”

The NY Times: “The Kenyan police seemed to be ratcheting up the pressure against demonstrators and others on Thursday, the second day of opposition protests, arresting several journalists who were photographing street clashes and shooting tear gas at civilians in efforts to clear out neighborhoods.

In Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city and an opposition stronghold, the police squared off once again with stone-throwing mobs who said they were furious about last month’s flawed election in which Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, won by a wafer-thin margin.

A freelance photographer for The New York Times and a Japanese photojournalist who were covering the street clashes were detained for several hours and accused by police of instigating the violence. They were released without charges on Thursday afternoon.”