A new national report has exposed wide differences in how Kenyan counties respond to protests, with Nairobi emerging as the area where teargas is used most frequently during demonstrations.
The Kenya Freedom Index, published on Friday, May 22, 2026, by Amnesty International Kenya and Odipo Dev, tracks protest activity and police response between 2020 and 2025. It shows that crowd-control tactics vary widely depending on location and type of protest.
According to the data, Nairobi recorded 82 teargas incidents from 284 protests, the highest in the country. Mombasa and Kisumu each registered 14 incidents, despite having fewer protests at 44 and 36 respectively.
Nakuru recorded 11 incidents across 50 demonstrations. Uasin-Gishu and Kiambu both had 38 protests, but Uasin-Gishu recorded six teargas cases compared to Kiambu’s four. Kisii registered eight incidents from 30 protests.
The report highlights gaps between counties even where protest levels are similar.
“The most important comparison is between counties with similar protest volumes but sharply different teargas rates,” the report stated.
It further attributes the differences to variations in policing systems and local decision-making structures.
“They reflect policing decisions, command cultures, and local accountability structures that vary county by county,”
The study notes that the risk faced by protesters is not equal across the country.
“The right to protest in Kenya does not carry the same risk everywhere. Where you live determines how likely you are to be met with gas.”
It also found that police use of weapons was concentrated around specific categories of demonstrations.
“The data on weapons deployment is not evenly distributed across protest types,”
Governance-related protests, Gen Z-led actions, and opposition rallies were most likely to attract stronger police responses.
“It targeted Governance protests, Gen Z-led actions, and opposition demonstrations led by politicians that attract the heaviest weaponised responses.”
In contrast, some labour and community protests recorded lower levels of force, though the report says the pattern was not uniform across all counties.
“That unevenness is itself a finding. The right to protest should not vary by what you are protesting about. Sadly, the data shows that in Kenya, it does,”
The findings add to ongoing concerns about how protests have been handled in recent years, especially those involving young people and opposition groups.
Rights groups say the disparities point to the need for clearer national standards in crowd control and stronger accountability within the police service.
The report is expected to renew debate on whether constitutional rights to assembly are applied equally across the country.