The guys in power are waking up to the power of social media.They have managed to own,buy, bribe,intimidate and muzzle the main media but they been caught unaware by social media. From Uhuru to Ruto to Waiguru to name them..they are all looking for bloggers.
That law of "undermining authority of public officer" need to be declared uncostitutional.
In any case these kinds of moves against 20m social media folks aka citizen media is bound to fail unless they arrested nearly everyone.
The amiguity of that law alone fails the basic requirements of a little principle foundational to crim.law all over the world, the principle of legality. What the law is should be clear before you can be told you have violated it. After all, As vooke asks, what in God's name is "undermining the authority of a public officer"? Is it being rude to one? Insulting his wife? Challenging him on his poor job performance? Insulting the office he occupies? Or is it something more nefarious, such as actually interfering with the performance of their work? How can someone even 'interfere" with "the authority" of a public officer by matusi? Are not all Kenyans individually obligated to obey the law? If someone stops paying taxes because someone has insulted Uhuru, that person will have violated the law in his own right and can be dealt with appropriately. If someone tells people to disobey the law, that may or may not be a serious offence, misdemeanor depending on the law that ends up violated, if it does. What exactly are these acts "calculated to undermine" the public authority of an officer? Can we define what "lawful authority" and "undermine" mean here, please, before we start charging people whose opinions we dislike? Let us also define "contempt" while at it. If you make people think the president is not a very good president, for example (or your governor not a very good governor) by "uttering" "publishing' "printing" words....in other words if you CRITICIZE a public officer, are you violating Kenya's law? If so, can someone please get ready to hold Kenya to account for violating its international obligations to uphold basic human rights recognized in the UDHR, ICCPR and even the African Charter, UN Charter etc etc with this mideaval law?