Kenyan rioters demand reforms
07/07/2004 11:51 - (SA)
Nairobi - Kenyan police on Tuesday battled hundreds of demonstrators in western city of Kisumu who were demanding that constitutional reforms be rapidly implemented, officials said.
"Hundreds of youth are demonstrating, burning tyres and throwing stones in several areas in the outskirts of Kisumu," Nyanza provincial police chief Omar Bakari Jambeni told AFP by phone from Kisumu.
"They are shouting that they want a new constitution," said another officer who did not want to be named.
"We are using teargas since they are throwing stones," he added.
Police have been deployed in Kisumu to prevent the protesters from entering the central business district and "possibly loot and destroy property", Jambeni said.
In Nairobi, Police national spokesperson Jasper Ombati told AFP that officers have been deployed to maintain calm as up to 100 human rights activists gathered in the capital's Uhuru Park for a public rally planned by the Saba Saba Asili movement.
Saba Saba Asili political movement was launched after police clashed on July 7, 1991, with demonstrators in favour of multi-party democracy.
"We have deployed enough police in Nairobi to maintain security in accordance with the public order act," Ombati said.
An AFP journalist saw several riot police, some on horseback, patrolling the city as up to 100 people gathered in Uhuru Park's Freedom Corner, planting trees.
Edited by Tisha Steyn
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