Blogger Seth Odongo has been charged with hate speech in a Nairobi court and released on a Ksh 5 million bond or Ksh 2 million cash bail.
Seth who goes by the moniker Dikembe Disembe and blogs on Kenya Today, was accused of inciting ethnic emotions through his Facebook account. He allegedly posted a message inciting “the people of Lamu” to “remove the African colonialists” from their lands.
The alleged post is captured in the screenshot below;
The Facebook post which was never seen by anyone else but Mugo Wa Wairimu has ignited debate on how the Jubilee government plans to conduct prosecutions over hate speech as various Jubilee aligned bloggers like Mugo Wa Wairimu have incited the massacre of other communities without any action being taken on them.
Other Jubilee parliamentarians like Maina Kamanda and Mary Wambui have even called for the killings and intimated how they are buying arms to execute the same but no action has been taken on them.
The law against hate speech does not specify the maximum bail or bond terms and so it is left to magistrates to decide. This did not work well with the accused as he was charged with inciting communities against the Kikuyu community while the magistrate who was scheduled to listen to his plea is from the Kikuyu community.
Questions arise if the magistrate is not susceptible to ethnic emotions in deciding such a case.
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