#OccupyPlayGround: Kenya Antiriot Police Fired Tear Gas At Schoolchildren Protesting After Playground Grabbing By Politician
January 19th, 2015, marked the day when public school teachers went back to schools after two weeks of strike demanding for a pay rise. While pupils in public schools across the country were compensating for the lost learning time. Langata Road Primary School pupils in Nairobi were on the front line of protesters trying to seize back their school playground that has been allegedly grabbed by a local powerful politician in government.
Last week, Eliud Owalo, a local politician from the opposition, said, the playground had been grabbed by the politician in order to build a parking lot for his hotel that happens to be adjacent to the school. The protest’s organizers also said the playground has been under the school’s ownership since 1972. The “group of professional land grabbers’ linked to a senior politician, began fencing off the playground over the Christmas holiday.
As cited in the Daily Mail, the activists in a statement said:
“Langata Road Primary School playground has been grabbed by a group of known professional land grabbers acting on behalf of a very senior politician in the (ruling coalition) Jubilee government.”
The protest has gone digital to social media and is currently trending in Kenya under the hashtag; OccupyPlayGround.
The following is a snippet of some of the comments being made on Twitter:
Enough Said. #OccupyPlayGround pic.twitter.com/VTGSTDdWEt
— Sam Gichuru (@SamGichuru) January 19, 2015
Pupils teargassed as wall at Lang’ata school demolished http://t.co/tQ1O4UcFw1 #OccupyPlayGround pic.twitter.com/qjFDAnvy5p — Capital FM Kenya (@CapitalFM_kenya) January 19, 2015
The children were peaceful,they were carrying leaves as a sign of peace,some parents were there too #OccupyPlayGround pic.twitter.com/lgejcN8Y97
— Boniface Mwangi (@bonifacemwangi) January 19, 2015
These images are hard to forget #OccupyPlayGround pic.twitter.com/x0LeJcxhbX — njooro (@njooro) January 20, 2015
If you had bought these kids laptops, they could have been Online Activists and avoided this whole children gassing issue #OccupyPlayGround
— Follow IG:@XtianDela (@xtiandela) January 19, 2015
LOL”@mmnjug: Hahaha! Wueeeh! RT @MisterAlbie: This sums up everything… #OccupyPlayGround pic.twitter.com/PB9miENNJb” — IG:@g_onecoolshy (@G_OneCoolshy) January 19, 2015
We are becoming a failed state when the media refers a “land grabber” as a “developer” @RobertAlai #OccupyPlayGround #DarkDays
— Alex Gitahi (@alex_gitahi) January 20, 2015
RT Summary @jwakibia @KamaruMathenge @JanetMbugua @CitizenTVNews @LarryMadowo #OccupyPlayGround pic.twitter.com/qQK6RLl9MN
— Abae Akili™ (@abaeakili) January 20, 2015
To read more on this, follow the #OccupyPlayGround on social media.