By Benadeta Mwaura - Reporter
Kenya, 2 September 2026 - When President William Ruto stood before the country last week to commemorate 16 years of Kenya's Constitution, he delivered a message that appeared to mark a significant change in tone on dissent, protest and the treatment of government critics.
“No Kenyan should lose their life, liberty, or dignity merely for criticising the government, expressing an unpopular opinion or participating in peaceful demonstration,” Ruto said on August 27 during the Katiba Day Symposium in Nairobi.
He went further, acknowledging the unresolved pain surrounding the 2024 and 2025 protests and the allegations of unlawful arrests, enforced disappearances and excessive use of lethal force.
“I recognise the pain that remains from the events of that period. Some families lost loved ones. Serious allegations were made concerning unlawful arrests, enforced disappearances and the excessive use of lethal force,” the President said.
Ruto also called for investigations, saying, “Every credible allegation of a human-rights violation must be investigated independently, thoroughly, and transparently.”
Those words now carry an uncomfortable weight.
Just days later, Standard Group Associate Editor Alex Kiprotich was abducted along the Gilgil–Nakuru Road while travelling to Nakuru, in an incident that has once again placed Kenya's record on enforced disappearances, press freedom and the safety of government critics under intense scrutiny.
The Standard Group said Kiprotich was taken shortly before 9:20pm on Tuesday, September 1. The media house initially said it did not know his whereabouts and demanded his immediate and unconditional release.
About nine hours later, Kiprotich was found near Masinga Dam together with his driver. He was safe, according to the latest update from The Standard Group.
The circumstances surrounding the abduction, including who carried it out and why, remain subject to investigation.
But for Kiprotich, this was not the first time.
On June 27, four armed men reportedly attempted to abduct him in Nakuru. Kiprotich escaped after locking the doors of his vehicle and driving away. The incident occurred days after President Ruto had publicly criticised The Standard Group over its coverage of his administration.
The Committee to Protect Journalists later reported that Kiprotich told its investigators that three men in plain clothes, armed with AK-47 rifles, had approached his vehicle after it was intercepted. He said he locked the doors and sped away.
The Standard subsequently reported that private investigations had linked the men involved in the June incident to detectives attached to the Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau in Nakuru.
The latest incident has transformed what might otherwise have been viewed as an isolated criminal case into a much broader question about the safety of journalists and the protection of dissent in Kenya.
The Constitution is unequivocal on the rights at stake.
Article 28 provides that every person has inherent dignity and the right to have that dignity respected and protected.
Article 29 goes further, guaranteeing every person freedom and security of the person. It specifically protects citizens from arbitrary deprivation of freedom, detention without trial, violence from either public or private sources, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
These protections do not disappear because a person is a journalist.
They do not disappear because that journalist has written critically about the Government.
And they do not disappear because the views being expressed are unpopular.
Article 33 protects freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.
Article 34 provides an even more specific protection for the media. It guarantees the freedom and independence of print, electronic and other forms of media and states that the State shall not exercise control over or interfere with people engaged in the dissemination of information.
It also expressly prohibits the State from penalising a person for an opinion, view or the content of a broadcast, publication or dissemination.
That constitutional protection is central to what is now unfolding.
The Government does not have to agree with The Standard.
It does not have to agree with Alex Kiprotich.
It does not have to agree with any journalist, commentator, activist or citizen who criticises its policies.
But the constitutional bargain is that disagreement is answered with argument, evidence, investigation and, where necessary, lawful proceedings, not disappearance.
That is why President Ruto's own words matter.
“Peaceful protest, criticism, and dissent are essential to democracy,” he said last week.
He also said the Constitution could not be honoured by simply looking away from allegations of violations.
“We cannot honour the Constitution by looking away from such allegations,” he stated.
Kiprotich's case now provides a real-world test of that commitment.
The President has acknowledged that unlawful arrests and enforced disappearances cannot be ignored. He has called for credible allegations of human-rights violations to be investigated independently and transparently.
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Now there is another case.
A journalist who had already survived an alleged armed abduction attempt has been abducted again.
He has been found alive.
That is the good news.
But his safe return does not end the questions.
Who took him?
Why was he taken?
Where was he held?
Who authorised or facilitated the operation, if anyone?
Why was a journalist who had already reported an earlier attempted abduction targeted again?
And, perhaps most importantly, will the investigation be independent enough to establish the truth regardless of who the evidence leads to?
These questions are particularly urgent because Kenya's history with alleged enforced disappearances has not ended with the 2024 and 2025 protests.
Amnesty International Kenya, marking the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on August 30, said the Government must move beyond acknowledgment and promises and take concrete action to end enforced disappearances, establish the truth about those who disappeared, hold perpetrators accountable and provide reparations to victims and their families.
The organisation's statement came only three days after Ruto's Katiba Day remarks.
The timing is difficult to ignore.
There is also a wider legal gap. Kenya signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in 2007 but has yet to ratify it or enact specific domestic legislation criminalising enforced disappearance.
For journalists, the stakes are even higher.
A journalist who believes that critical reporting could result in surveillance, harassment, arbitrary detention, abduction or violence cannot work freely.
And when journalists become afraid to ask difficult questions, the damage does not stop inside a newsroom.
It reaches every Kenyan who depends on the media to scrutinise those in power.
The Constitution therefore protects more than the journalist.
It protects the public's right to know.
Kiprotich is now home alive.
But the country still needs answers.
Because the question raised by his abduction is not merely who took one journalist on Tuesday night.
It is whether Kenya can make the President's promise real.
If, as Ruto said, “no Kenyan should lose their life, liberty, or dignity” for criticising government, then the protection of that liberty cannot remain a speech made at a constitutional anniversary.
It must become something Kenyans can experience in real life.
For Alex Kiprotich, that means an investigation capable of establishing what happened.
For journalists, it means being able to do their jobs without fear.
And for Kenya, it means proving that the rights written into the Constitution are not promises that exist only on paper.
Ruto Said No Kenyan Should Lose Their Liberty for Criticising Government, A Journalist is Abducted Days Later
Kiprotich told its investigators that three men in plain clothes, armed with AK-47 rifles, had approached his vehicle after it was intercepted.