By Vincy Mighulo Masaka and Asma Darwish
“Don’t shoot to kill, shoot the leg...” was the chilling instruction Kenyan President William Ruto reportedly gave to police after Kenya’s #Sabasaba protests in July, where thousands of young people took to the streets to denounce alleged state-led efforts to silence critics of his regime.
The state’s response followed a now familiar and tragic pattern of police brutality, where live bullets, tear gas, abductions, and arbitrary arrests were the order of the day. The consequences were devastating; over ten people killed, many others injured by stray bullets or severe beatings by police officers, and some still missing after being whisked away by uniformed police from the comfort of their homes or places of work, their whereabouts unknown not only to their families but, shockingly, even to law enforcement agencies themselves.
These tactics did little to deter Kenyans. Instead, they sparked a digital wave of satire and creativity. Within hours, social media was flooded with AI generated images and viral hashtags such as #Wheelliam #OneLeggeMovement and a TikTok challenge dubbed #RisasiYaMguu (Swahili for “bullet to the leg”).
Far from being a moment of comic relief, this wave of digital activism and AI-generated satire revealed something deeper: a shift in how resistance is being imagined, expressed, and mobilised in Kenya. Where memes, civic tech solutions, and code have joined the chants and placards in the fight for justice.
What looks like comedy online is in truth a language of defiance, a pulse of resistance. It is a pause: a collective inhale in the face of real danger. At its heart, this speaks to something much deeper: what happens when citizens refuse to be silenced, and how creativity becomes a tool to challenge power. But resistance alone, however creative or powerful, is not enough. Memes, hashtags, and AI-generated satire may expose the absurdity of repression, but they cannot dismantle the systems that make brutality possible.
What happened in Kenya is not an isolated case but is reflective of a wider global trend. Across the world, from Indonesia to Tanzania, from Venezuela to Tunisia, civil society is being undermined by shrinking civic space. Protestors are often met with digital surveillance, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests. Those who dare to stand at the forefront face harassment, criminalisation, and imprisonment. CIVICUS’ #StandAsMyWitness campaign highlights cases of human rights defenders persecuted for their activism worldwide. The campaign remains a stark reminder that solidarity is a call to action, to resist fear, to vote for leaders who will protect freedoms, and to hold them to account when they fail.
The State of Civil Society Report 2025 by CIVICUS warns of an accelerating global crisis: democratic backsliding, criminalisation of dissent, and the systematic normalisation of state brutality as a political strategy. And in this crisis, young people, whose voices deserve to be heard, are branded as extremists or state terrorists for simply demanding change.
Yet repression has not silenced the people but transformed resistance. People always find alternatives to voice their concerns and aspirations.
Digital protests have become the new form of civic activism, transcending to heights that tear gas or bullets cannot stop. Technology has been used around the world to document abuses, mobilise communities, and counter official narratives, prompting the need to reimagine how activism can thrive beyond streets and courtrooms. In Bahrain, for example, Asma once started an open hunger strike that lasted 12 days, demanding the freedom of her family members imprisoned for politically motivated reasons. She used X (Twitter at that time) to communicate daily tweets on her hunger strike and her demands. This ended in her arrest. However, Twitter rescued her, when a former New Zealander prime minister played a crucial role in winning her release and it is partly due to her passion for Twitter.
In Kenya, Mighulo uses Instagram to share stories of human rights violations and rally others to speak out and hold power to account. For her, this work is deeply personal. But behind the viral memes and satire lies real fear: politicians proposing to use AI to track critics and block them from jobs, branding constructive criticism as treason or terrorism. She worries about police knocking at 3 a.m. or being arrested in Nairobi’s CBD. Yet despite this, she keeps going through hashtags, digital campaigns, and civic tech, because silence is not an option when freedoms are under threat. At its core, her activism remains a fight to speak truth to power and protect everyone’s right to question and hope.
Activists must rethink how they organize, communicate, and challenge power in an age where physical spaces for protest and assembly have become increasingly dangerous, and digital spaces, though disruptive, are now equally threatened by shutdowns, surveillance, censorship, and disinformation.
But resistance alone, however creative or powerful, is not enough. Memes, hashtags, and AI-generated satire may expose the absurdity of repression, but they cannot dismantle the systems that make brutality possible. If we want a future where no young person fears a knock on the door at 3 a.m., we must go beyond protest and transform our resistance into agency. We dare to dream of a moment where those who claim to represent us stand with, not against, the people.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” The value of freedom burns through resisting, documenting, and reimagining disruptive ways to speak truth to power. What is at stake is more than a hashtag, more than a viral meme, more than a single protest. It is the right to imagine a different future. A future where our resistance is matched with leaders who hear our demands, amplify our voices, and defend our freedoms.
Silence is the ally of impunity, and only by refusing to be silent can we shape the just, inclusive, and democratic society our children deserve.
Vincy Mighulo Masaka is a Kenyan human rights defender and Gender and Development expert. She is the Project Officer- Host Liaison for the Digital Democracy Initiative at CIVICUS.
Asma Darwish, is a Bahraini human rights defender, and she leads the Stand As My Witness campaign, the WeRise! Initiative & the MENA Advocacy in CIVICUS.
