While recent years have seen Israel exporting advanced surveillance technologies to countries across the continent, there’s a parallel trend of supplying traditional crowd control equipment such as tear gas canisters.
In June and July 2024, East Africa experienced waves of protests, notably in Kenya, where large-scale youth-led demonstrations erupted in response to the contentious Finance Bill 2024. The demonstrations were part of a broader effort to pressure President William Ruto, with activist groups staging protests every Tuesday and Thursday and calling for his resignation due to the government’s fiscal policies and handling of the economic crisis.
Richard Ngamita is a data consultant and technologist with more than 10 years of experience and training in data analysis, analytics, research methods and applied machine learning, studied footage from these demonstrations. They provided an opportunity to analyse the riot gear used by security forces, expanding the digital library research as part of the Tech Misuse and Abuse Project. The findings are astonishing.
