GRAPHIC PHOTOS – Injured ‘Painter’ Was Part of the IEBC Demos

A lot of sideshows have dominated Monday’s Anti-IEBC demos. The issue at hand ought to be police brutality.
Mark Twain once said that If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
But what has dominated social media this week has been lies, exaggerations and more lies. The videos and photos of police beating demonstrators were enough evidence of police brutality. We thought Kenya had left this stage, but Nkaissery reminded us of our place in society.
Major world media houses published the photos, once again shaming our country. It is anyone’s hope that action is taken on the officers involved.
Some social media users however did not feel the graphic images and videos were enough. Early in the morning, they killed the guy caught on video getting beaten.
They gave him a fictional name ‘Ben Ngatia/Ngari’, and announced he was from Ndumberi, Kiambu.
That lie was later in the day exposed when certain journalists found the guy alive in Kibera. His name is Boniface Mosoti.
The other picture widely published was of a man with a deep cut on the forehead.


To bring a human side of the police brutality, tweets started popping up how the guy was caught up in the whole mess while going about his day job as a painter.
For example, the only words missing in this tweet by @asmali77 is “Type Amen”.

This picture soon emerged of the same man ‘going about his painting job’.

A paint brush is no weapon, and with what we have, we can say the guy was peaceful. If the injury on his forehead was as a direct result of police beating, that is quite unfortunate.
But while we sympathize with the guy, let us understand that part of the reason there’s so much suspicion, accusations and counter-accusations on social media, is because of lies and exaggerations.
When you kill someone in the morning and then he resurrects in the afternoon, you are just giving the other side more arsenal. The same way when an innocent painter going about his job is later found to have been actively participating in the demo.
Let’s use facts in our condemnations.