On 30 November 2004, a lawyer jumped over the perimeter fence around the private members car park at Parliament

buildings and ripped the flag off a cabinet ministers sleek GK limousine. He was immediately arrested and charged in court the following day with creating a disturbance in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace. Instead of pleading to the charge, he proceeded to sing the national anthem in Kiswahili and to make a speech in full view of TV cameras, whereupon the presiding magistrate, Aggrey Muchelule, ordered that the lawyer be taken for a psychiatric evaluation. However, was the lawyer really mad or just mad with the NARC Government? Does this lawyer speak for you or just for himself? Is he a patriotic Kenyan or an Enemy of the State? Well, here is your chance to find out. Please read on

A Lone Man Does He Become an #EnemyOfTheState? NJONJO MUE

A. NJONJO MUE A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE

Njonjo Mue is a Human Rights Lawyer and Advocate of the High Court of Kenya having been admitted to roll of advocates in 1991. He currently serves as the Head of the Kenya Office of the New York based International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). ICTJ works to help societies in transition address legacies of massive human rights violations and build civic trust in state institutions as protectors of human rights. Njonjo has worked with ICTJ since June 2009 as Head of its Kenya Office and as the Deputy Director for its Africa Program. Before joining ICTJ, Njonjo worked as the Head of Advocacy at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. Njonjo Mue was educated at Alliance High School; the University of Nairobi where he obtained an LL.B degree; Kenya School of Law; Oxford University, UK, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and studied for a Masters in international law and comparative human rights (though he was prevented by illness from graduating); Helsinki University in Finland where he obtained a diploma in Problems in Contemporary International Law; and the Nairobi International School of Theology where he obtained an MA in

Theology majoring in the Theology of Social Involvement, Christian Ministry and Leadership. He wrote his MA Thesis on the topic Forgiveness in Politics: Reflections on Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in Kenya. He has vast experience in leading successful human rights organizations both in Kenya and abroad. He served as the Head of the Africa Office of ARTICLE 19 The Global Campaign for Free Expression in Johannesburg, South Africa; as Regional Director for Panos Eastern Africa based in Kampala, Uganda; and as Executive Director of Christians For a Just Society which seeks to mobilize the Church for social action in Kenya. He also worked briefly as the Head of Policy and Advocacy with World Vision Kenya.

Njonjo Mue is a holder of several leadership and human rights awards, including being named the youngest Jurist of the Year by the Kenya Section of the International Commission of Jurists in 2000 for his commitment to fighting for democracy, human rights and the rule of law; and the Anthony Dzuya Leadership Award by the Young Professionals Forum. He currently serves on the Rhodes Scholars Selection Committee for Kenya and the Governing Council of the Kenya Section of the International Commission of Jurists. He is a prolific writer and campaigner on human rights and social justice issues and has spoken to many audiences at home and abroad. Njonjo is keen on citizens participation in reform initiatives through legislative advocacy and was a founder member of the International Institute of Legislative Affairs on whose Board he sits.

Njonjo is married to Katindi Sivi Njonjo, a policy analyst who uses futures methodology to study possible scenarios facing societies in transition in order to help develop appropriate interventions.

B. CRUSADER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

From leading peaceful demonstrations at university to protest the assassination of Dr. Robert Ouko in 1990, to representing Kenyan youth in celebrating the bicentennial of the French Revolution at a youth conference in France in 1989, to being a founder member and sitting on the advisory board of the Oxford Civil Liberties Society, to taking a leading part in demands for a new constitution in the heady days of No reforms, No elections! in the1990s, Njonjo has given his life to the cause of the fight for human rights. Engaging the powers Njonjo believes in creative nonviolent action to bring about sustainable social change as well as to highlight injustice. On 31 May 1997, during a rally called by pro-reform activists to press for a new constitution, Njonjo led a group of activists in forming a human shield by kneeling before a fully armed contingent of riot police and GSU personnel. That was to protect their civil society colleagues as they attempted to hold a peaceful rally, which the Moi regime had outlawed. While his comrades developed cold feet and fled, Njonjo was left alone, unarmed, kneeling to face the police. The picture above (See Picture sent separately) was carried by The People newspaper, the day after the rally that was violently disrupted by the police under the caption, Praying for the Nation.

Season of discontent 2004 was the season of discontent in Kenya. It did not take long for a country that had been voted the most optimistic nation on earth following the NARC victory in 2002 to sink to the depths of despair as the lofty promises of the rainbow dream team dissipated into a mere mirage and the political elite descended into the gutter of mudslinging and name calling in the wake of a dishonoured MoU. The only thing the new government seemed agreed upon was the urgent business of raising MPs salaries and processing their car allowances and tax-free mortgages. Corruption skyrocketed with the advent of Anglo leasing hot on the heels of the yet to be resolved Goldenberg scandal. As usual, it was the ordinary citizen who bore the brunt of the failure of governance, struggling to eke out a living amidst skyrocketing inflation. Paying the price Rather than merely join in the chorus of disapproval that was rising in every bar, bedroom and boardroom, Njonjo decided to dramatize the outrage most people were feeling but did not know quite know how to express. After taking two weeks to do a whistle stop tour of all the eight provinces speaking to ordinary people about the performance of their government to ensure that he was not alone in the despondency he felt towards the new government and its broken promises, Njonjo drafted a 10 point memorandum of protest and recall notice addressed to Parliament and pinned it on the main entrance of the National Assembly. A few days later, on 30th November 2004, he scaled the wall of Parliament and took away a pennant flag off a cabinet ministers limousine to symbolically demonstrate the governments loss of moral authority to govern. Contrary to press reports that he slapped Assistant Minister George Khaniri in the process, Njonjos action was entirely nonviolent as Khaniri himself later confirmed. Njonjo was promptly arrested and charged with creating a disturbance. Yes, I am mad! When the charge was read out before a packed courtroom and in front of TV cameras, Njonjo opted not to plead, but rather to sing the national anthem to further dramatize the nature of and the reason for his nonviolent protest. When the presiding magistrate ordered that he be taken for a psychiatric examination, Njonjo made the following memorable speech: Your honour, if in Kenya today it is considered normal for ministers to drive vehicles worth ten million shillings while a family of six in Kibera subsists on forty six shillings a day, then you dont have to ask a psychiatrist, I will tell you myself for free, I am mad; if it is considered normal for MPs to be taken to Mombasa on holidays by BAT to be bribed to block tobacco control legislation while our people continue dying of tobacco related ailments, then I am mad; if it is normal for our leaders to traverse the land hurling insults at each other while our people are robbed, raped and murdered, then I am mad; and I take comfort in the fact that I am not the only one, we are millions of mad people who do not want to act normal while watching our country going to the dogs. As for the charge before you, your honour, I beseech you not only to find me guilty, but to hand down the harshest sentence permitted by the law.

Njonjo was incarcerated for two weeks before being released on bond. The Attorney General later withdrew the charges, despite the fact that he could not technically do so as Njonjo had already pleaded guilty. While many dismissed Njonjos actions during that November of discontent, a few read it for what it really was, a legitimate act of protest. Writing in an article aptly titled, Kenya a nation in despair that appeared in a local daily and on the African Economic Analysis blog (See http://www.africaeconomicanalysis.org/articles/gen/kenya1204.html ), one commentator, Michael Mundia Kamau, said: "There is something terribly wrong in this country. There is a devastating and looming crisis in our midst, and direction out of this needs to be established fast. Government and local authority functions have crumbled to the detriment of an entire nation. It is this sheer frustration that drove an exasperated Njonjo Mue to confronting two government ministers on the grounds of parliament on 30th November 2004. Njonjo Mues bold and courageous act of confrontation will one day rank alongside that of the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14th 1789, the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama, and the brave, bold and courageous manner in which civil rights activist James Chaney met his death at the hands of white captors in June 1964 by telling them to their faces, I aint running. After paying tribute to other Kenyans throughout history who had gone against the grain and stood up for what they believed in, the author went on to say: "Njonjo Mues bold and courageous act of 30th November 2004 is nevertheless an enviable and inspiring wakeup call to both the entire Kenyan leadership and to the ineffective and heavily compromised Kenyan middle class in deep slumber, a heavily compromised 21st century Kenyan middle class that makes 18th century Frances Marie Antoinette and her callousness, appear saintly. The Kenyan middle class on which the country relies on for direction and intellect is decadent, and hopelessly preoccupied with sex, pleasure, alcohol, flashy cars and flashy cell phones. Fresh impetus and direction needs to be given to the Kenyan dream, struggle and movement, and Njonjo Mue played a shining role in this respect on the 30th November 2004. Sanity and direction urgently require to be restored in this country." Writing in her weekly column in the regional newspaper, The East African, on 13th December 2004 (See: http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/opOrEd/-/434748/245248/-/rc5ey7z/-/index.html ), in an article boldly titled: Bravo, Mue, we all dont believe in NARC, The Executive Director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, Muthoni Wanyeki, commented: "I felt the same way on learning that it was actually Njonjo Mue who had scaled the walls of parliament and torn a flag off a government car. Mue was protesting what he felt was our new governments complete betrayal of all of the ideals, all of the peoples struggles, that brought it into power. His audacity made me feel somewhat gleeful for I find I have to try harder and harder every day to continue to believe in all of the reforms initiated or promised by the National Rainbow Coalition. And although, unlike Mue, I am dealing with my disillusionment from the comfort of my organised, safe work space and

certainly not scaling parliamentary walls, it gives me great pleasure that someone else is. Because I do still believe in dialectics thesis, antithesis, synthesis. And actions like Mues enable, make possible, the kind of actions I contemplate now. Actions like Mues highlight, in all the ways that organised advocacy, diplomacy and negotiations of the kind that my organisations do not, the basis on which we are all acting. So, I agree with the National Constitution Executive Council in their calls for all charges against Mue to be dropped on the basis that they constitute legitimate protest an exercise of his freedom of expression. Dramatic gestures have their uses." Weeping with those who weep One year later, Njonjo hit the headlines again. This time, as Executive Director of Christians for a Just Society (CFJS), he took on both the Kenyan and the American governments over compensation for victims of the 1998 bomb blast at the US Embassy in Nairobi. Fourteen of the victims who were permanently injured and lost their livelihoods because of the bomb blast had gone on a hunger strike and camped at the August 7 Memorial Park seeking compensation. Njonjo mobilized CFJS members to donate blankets for the survivors and temporarily moved the offices of CFJS to the Park and spent some nights at the park in solidarity with the survivors. He led CFJS in collecting signatures for a petition to the Kenyan and US Government for compensation. However when he went to the US embassy to present the petition after the Kenyan government failed to forward it to the Embassy, he was arrested and charged with creating a disturbance. He was incarcerated at the Industrial Area Remand Prison for one month before being discharged. Although the survivors were violently dispersed after spending 124 days and nights at the park, their campaign maintained momentum. On 7th August 2008, their commemoration ceremony at the Park was attended by the Prime Minister, the Minister for Internal Security and other senior government officials, the first time the government had been represented at the anniversary of the bomb blast in five years. On 9th September 2008, the Chairperson of the August 7th Welfare Association, whom Njonjo had helped in organizing events and writing speeches and memoranda, was honoured with an invitation to address a Symposium on Supporting Victims of Terrorism that was hosted by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, at the United Nations in New York. (See Victims of terrorism share stories at U.N. - Los Angeles Times, September 10th 2008, (http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/10/world/fg-victims10 ). Their campaign for compensation continues. I was in prison, and you visited me. On 17th November 2008, while working with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, Njonjo received a call from an anonymous warder at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison informing him that there had been daylong disturbances at the prison the day before and that one prisoner had been killed. Njonjo immediately drove to the prison and found the prisons top brass in the process of what appeared to be a cover-up. Njonjo managed to go into Cell G6 where the body of the dead prisoner was still lying as his fellow inmates refused to let the prison authorities take it away fearing that they would be blamed for it while they claimed that he had died at the hands of brutal prison warders. In the process of his

investigations, Njonjo discovered that prison warders had allegedly unleashed brutal violence including scalding inmates with boiling water. But what shocked the nation and the international community beyond was footage of prison warders mercilessly beating naked prisoners which Njonjo smuggled out of the prison and which was aired on TV locally and abroad and led to widespread condemnation of the warders actions including by the Minister of Justice. The officer in charge and several warders were interdicted and several reforms undertaken as a result. Fighting the good fight Whether engaging in intellectual human rights discourse in the hallowed cloisters of Oxford, or representing Kenya in human rights conferences abroad, or collecting signatures for human rights petitions on the streets, or facing off with gun totting and teargas wielding riot police, or exposing brutality in prisons and campaigning for reform, Njonjo Mues philosophy has always been that human rights campaigners must choose their battles. This is not only because they can be won, but also because they must be fought. His quest for justice and human dignity has taken him everywhere from the heights of hobnobbing with the great and the good in cocktail parties with ambassadors and cabinet ministers, to the dungeons of gloom in the death traps that are Kenyas prisons. Wherever the fight has taken him, Njonjo Mue has remained a courageous and consistent crusader for human dignity and a spokesperson for the least of these NOT an #EnemyOfTheState!