Comedian Eric Omondi has been charged with taking part in an unlawful assembly along Parliament Road on Tuesday.
The funnyman was charged at the Milimani Law Courts alongside 16 others.
Appearing before Chief Magistrate Lucas Onyina, the 17 denied the charge and pleaded for release on a “reasonable’ cash bail of not more than Sh5,000, or personal bonds.
Their lawyer Danstan Omari said his clients were content creators whose agenda was to push the government to tame the rising cost of living.
Read: Comedian Eric Omondi Arrested During Protests (Video)
“All these persons are international content creators. They went to Parliament to agitate for measures that will deal with the current high cost of living in the country. I urge the court to take the judicial notice that six million Kenyans are on the verge of hunger as per the government report,” Mr Omari said.
“The young men represented 55 million Kenyans [in telling] Parliament to tame the high cost of living. The State has criminalized these national heroes fighting for the whole country. The people cannot afford food on their tables.”
The 17 were released on Sh20,000 bond or Sh10,000 cash bail each.
The case will be mentioned on March 6 for a pretrial conference.
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Eric and his co-accused walked the streets of Nairobi shirtless as they protested the high cost of living. Things quickly went south after the protesters attempted to forcefully access Parliament.
They were seeking an audience with National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula who was unavailable at the time.
Police lobbed teargas to disperse the crowd.
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