Nairobi’s new gold rush: Regional crackdowns put money in Kenya’s pockets
The East African Community promotes the free movement of goods, capital and labour. It never anticipated the free movement of political activism or the surveillance that would follow.
On June 22, 2026, Kenyan lawyer, rights activist and former justice minister Martha Karua arrived at Entebbe International Airport to join the defence team for Uganda’s detained opposition figure, Kizza Besigye. She got no further. Security agents intercepted her, confiscated her communication devices and bundled her on a plane back to Nairobi.
The Ugandan government said the move was necessary on “national security grounds” (there goes that catch-all excuse again). In reality, it shut out external legal scrutiny at a sensitive stage of Besigye’s defence.
