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Redraw of an old sketch

Protests in Kenya

Hey guys, I'm not sure if you've heard, but there are protests happening in Kenya. As someone living in Kenya, I want to keep you updated and inform of what happening, preferably as soon as possible (I've already delayed like a week) before the internet cuts become more serious (which hopefully it doesn't, but you never know. Or there might be national blackout)

Okay, let's start with some context. So I believe it was last Sunday, June 16th was when the Finance Bill was introduced. The Finance Bill basically goes over the budget for the government, and the measures the government is going to take to finance the budget. This bill was widely unpopular because of the amount of taxes introduced on basic necessities, such as bread, feminine hygiene products (pads and stuff), diapers, cars (not buying a new car, but literally just having one on the road), vegetable oil, fuel, and sugar. They even taxed medical treatments, such as cancer treatments and Mpesa, which is a mobile money service that so many across the country use to send and receive money, as well as pay for anything.

This is coupled by the fact that the government doesn't really do all too much for the average Kenyan, so all these extra taxes will not come back to the people. Just in the past month, our president, William Ruto, was going from country to country on our tax dollars. Just in this year alone he has done 20 international visits, and the year is only about halfway done. A lot of the tax dollars go to 'confidential expenditures', which is just whatever the officials want it to be. All of this money being spent by top government officials, but our public school system is not good, we still get frequent power outages (unless you live near State House (where the president lives)), water isn't guaranteed (my family once had no municipal water for months, and had to buy a water tank and supply our own water), youth unemployment is high, healthcare is lacking, the roads are not well built, the cost of living is higher than it's ever been, the shilling is doing badly (especially against the dollar) among many other issues.

So, fed up with all of this excessive taxation, and the corruption of the politicians, many people, especially young people have taken into the streets to protest. If you read Kenyan news, you may hear the word 'maandamano' being used to describe it, just know that it means protests, basically. Starting in Nairobi City Center (or Town, as it's locally called), the protests have spread across the country to almost every major city. Of course with protests comes police pushback.

Teargas has been used against the crowds, although some protestors are brave enough to just through it back to the police. Water cannons have been used, and recently guns. At least 5 people have died in the protests, with a couple hundred injured.

Amidst all of this, the government has decided to amend some parts of the bill, getting rid of some taxes, such as the taxes on cars and Mpesa, or changing some, such as now only imported feminine hygiene products and diapers will be taxed; domestic ones will not. This happened late last week, I believe Friday June 21st or so, and is expected to go into effect July 1st. However, this is still not enough, as the protestors were calling for the bill to be rejected completely, and led to more protests happening yesterday, Tuesday, June 25th, and more planned for tomorrow (Thursday, June 27th). Yesterdays protests were a lot more intense, with the parliment building being breached and set on fire (it didn't burn down in it's entirety), and the crowds being larger than usual.

This led to Safaricom, one of the biggest internet and cell service providers to basically disconnect us yesterday afternoon. As someone who has a Safaricom sim card and home internet, I can confirm that the internet was unbearably slow. Some social media sites, such as Youtube or Pinterest worked, although many things didn't load. Snapchat and Whatsapp worked as well, faster than the first two, but still noticeably slower. I could not get into Tumblr at all yesterday, which is what prompted me to write this long text post. If I disappear for a couple of days, you know what happens. There's also the possibility of a national blackout, but that's kinda not new. Sometimes, Kenya Power is just 'silly' and there's no power in the entire country. It's happened at least once in the past year.

So, what can you do? Personally, I think just being aware and speaking about this is probably one of the best things to do for now. Other than a national blackout, I don't see this situation devolving into full-scale violence, and I'm hoping really hard that it doesn't. If you have any friends or relative in Kenya, perhaps reach out to them and make sure that they're okay. In addition, as you keep the situation of Kenya in mind, be sure to also keep in mind what's happening in other parts of the world, such as Palestine, Congo, and Sudan. We're not free until everyone is free.

Anyways, thanks for reading, I'll drop links for further info below.

PS. I forgot to mention that firstly, we've sent police to Haiti, even though I'm fairly sure that we're not allowed to do that. Secondly, the government has threatened to shut down KTN, a major news broadcasting service in response to this.

PPS. I forgot to mention that this isn't the first time that there were protests against him. It happened around summertime last year as well, although those protests were organized by his main opposition, Raila Odinga, who was basically pulling a Trump. I believe the national blackout happened in the midst of all of that, so my fear for a national blackout is not unfounded.

Update (27/6/24) : So, the finance bill has passed in Parliament, but Ruto has refused to sign it, which you might consider a win, right? Well, not really. Since Parliament has already passed it, if they don't rescind it, it will become law in 21 days. All he's done is kinda bought himself time to oppress the protestors since if Parliament doesn't' rescind it, it'll go into effect later than July 1st.

I'm trying to see if I can find what the government has allocated funds to in order to paint a picture of how the government is misuing our tax money, but I can't seem to find a credible source, just things put on social media. A starting point, for sure. I'll be back this afternoon to continue looking

Also, I'm okay! I'm safe, and will most likely be for the time being! There are some protests near my house but I personally have not physically been at the protests. Today is another scheduled day for protests, so we'll see what comes out of this (hopefully no violence, but I did talk to a guy who went Tuesday, and he said that someone got shot right next to him, so... yikes.)

Okay, I'm back, and here's what I found. This article from the Nation, a Kenyan news source, goes over the budget for the deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua. These figures seemed to be the source of what many on social media are quoting, so I'll link the article here.

Nation

MPs question allocation of Sh2.6bn for renovation of Gachagua’s office

Lawmakers take issue with an allocation to renovate the DP's Harambee Annex office and Karen residence.

As well as this video from Tiktok that goes over what the article is saying:

I will list the prices in the infochart from the Tiktok in USD so you can get a sense of how much money this is. Keep in mind that this is just for DP Gachagua alone. Conversion rate is 100 shillings to 0.77 dollars.

Karen Home Renovation (For context, Karen is a wealthy residential area in Nairobi where the deputy president lives): $5,106,382.97 (5.1 million)

Harambee Annex Office (His office) Refurbishment: $3,558,994.19 (3.56 million)

Confidential Expenditure (Whatever he wants it to be without reporting what exactly it was): $6,808,510.63 (6.8 million)

Drug Abuse Fight*: $1,934,235.98 (1.9 million)

Medals: $1,934,235.98 (1.9 million)

Motor Vehicles: $1,547,388.78 (1.5 million)

Household Appliances: $19,342.36

Office Furniture: $290,135.40

Educational Aids*: $15,473.89

Laundry: $16,247.58

Internet Connection: $77,369.44

Accomodation: $704,061.89

Gas: 4,023.21

*The reason the person in the video laughed at this is because politicians here have a history of allocating funds to public works but the money gets taken. That's why a lot of roads are half finished, some official took the money that was meant to finish the road.

Also, to give a sense of the purchasing power of the Kenyan shilling, my daily commute costs about 160 ksh. A six pack of hot dog rolls is 120. Snickers is like 224. I got oatmeal and chia seeds for 789. Some Sony Bluetooth headphones are going for about 7,000. So please let that sink it how much money that is, and why we're so mad and insistent on not paying any more taxes.

(7/24/7: Reblogged this with more updates.)

en.wikipedia.org

List of international presidential trips made by William Ruto - Wikipedia

List of international presidential trips made by William Ruto - Wikipedia

http://www.parliament.go.ke/sites/default/files/2024-05/Finance%20Bill%2C%202024_0.pdf

Amnesty International

Authorities in Kenya must release all individuals who have been arbitrarily detained.

These abductions of at least 12 people, which have occurred over the last five days and intensified last night, are a gross violation of hum

Al Jazeera

Several killed as Kenyan police open fire on anti-tax bill protesters

Parts of Parliament building set ablaze as crowd attempts to storm the complex in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

Miles Edgeworth(35) meets Phoenix Wright(21) 

Phoenix Wright(35) meets Miles Edgeworth(20)

Next time, lay off the grape juice, alright? 

ALL THREE AT ONCE LETS GO

[I.D. three screenshots of the tags for asexual, aromantic and aroace all gradient highlighted and marked with the trending topic symbol. End I.D.] (thank you @lemondoddle for the id!!)

edit:

KEEP TAGGING THIS ‼️ the tags aren’t trending anymore so keep tagging it if you rb ‼️ (let’s make it to valentine’s day!)

edit 2:

asexual and aroace are trending again yall! but aromantic still isn’t trending so keep!! tagging!!

EDIT 3:

THEYRE ALL TRENDING AGAIN GOOD WORK YALL ITS NOT VALENTINE’S DAY IN MY TIMEZONE YET BUT HAPPY ARO/ACE/AROACE VALENTINES DAY WE DID IT ‼️ (still keep tagging though, don’t want to let them stop trending before valentine’s day is over) (or ever 👀)

edit 4:

i’m adding valentine’s day tag because. let’s invade that tag with this

EDIT 5 (and 6) (edit 6 is the image ids):

CAKE AND GARLIC BREAD FOR EVERYONE

[I.D. a beige-frosted one-tier espresso cake with caramel-colored drips on top along with nine swirls the same color as the rest of the cake around the top border. each swirl has a single espresso bean on top of it, and the cake itself has espresso beans surrounding it. End I.D.]

[I.D. half of a baguette in the form of garlic bread with a garnish of parsley or another garnish of that sort on top. the half is cut in six equal slices. in the top left corner, there are a few short ends of a plant sticking out, and the bottom right corner contains a section of the other half of garlic bread. End I.D.]

EDIT 7:

ITS VALENTINES DAY AND THEYRE STILL TRENDING HELL YEAHHHHHH

EDIT 8:

NUMBER THREE TRENDING?? TUMBLR IS THE BEST

[I.D. a screenshot of the tumblr trending tags list, showing third place as aromantic, trending with “#asexual” and “#aroace” in the same category. the background is a desaturated brownish-red, and the “3” is written in black text within a red circle. the rest of the text is white. End I.D.]

EDIT 9:

WERE MOVING UP ‼️ #2 ‼️

[I.D. a screenshot of the tumblr trending tags list, showing second place as aromantic, trending with “#asexual” and “#aroace” in the same category. the background is a desaturated yellow, and the “2” is written in black text within a yellow-orange circle. the rest of the text is white. End I.D.]

DESPITE IT ALL, WE HAVE EACH OTHER

no matter how much hopelessness they corner us into, they cannot stop us from taking care of each other.

somewhere to start today is by helping nada, who is less than 40% of the way towards her goal.

https://gofund.me/e06f31d3

please continue to share mutual aid, whether its in your own neighborhood or across the sea. please continue to find both what's urgent and what's beautiful in the world.

thank you always, take care.

speaking of how to train your dragon and creature design, the shift from the really naturalistic art direction and character animation for the first movie's toothless- the face getting flatter, the eyes bigger and closer together, getting rid of the little realistic details like the dust collecting between the scales, the pink splotching where the scales end at the nostrils, the muted markings, the animation making a shift from largely realistic animal behavior to much more anthropomorphic- is such a huge downgrade to me, made worse because it's subtle in such a way that you will sound insane if you mention it

(huge L for the "the audience's capacity to find a creature cute and empathetic and expressive is directly proportional to how much it looks like a human baby" principle of character design because the first one is so so much cuter)

phoenix “just swallow the evidence” wright

transcript under cut

Keep reading

every autistic person watching this episode of dungeon meshi:

Today russia attacked Ukrainian civilians in the worst missile barrage since the beginning of the war.

Those are one of the first posts I saw on social media during the day. And it is just a drop in the ocean. People from the news, injured and murdered, aren't just numbers, they had lifes, friends, jobs, pets. Some of them were alive and would be alive if russia weren't a terrorist state with imperialistic wet dreams to which the world always closed its eyes.

Even a fucking cinema. Even that one tiny piece of life was destroyed, a daily reminder for Ukrainians that the neighbourhood country thinks we don't deserve to live, to have something, to be a free country.

THIS is the face of russia. Not "beautiful" nature, not poets, not artists they stole from other nations, not anything else. The face of russia is a destroyed residential building, a murdered teacher and a woman who says she will never forget the picture of her neighbours corpses.