Mchunu’s letter was ‘unusual’ and ‘problematic’, says police deputy minister Cassel Mathale:
Deputy police minister Cassel Mathale’s testimony at parliament’s police ad hoc committee added to the number of government officials who were not consulted before suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu disbanded the KwaZulu-Natal political killings task team.
Mathale said Mchunu’s December 2024 directive to “immediately” disband the task team and submit a closure report within a month, as ordered in the letter, was “not practical”, “unusual” and “problematic”.
“It was very difficult to really put my thoughts together as to what was happening to him to craft the letter in the manner that he did,” Mathale said.
“I don’t know what was going through his mind and the circumstances he was in when he penned the latter.”
Mathale joins the growing list of officials who have indicated they were unaware of Mchunu’s order.
National police commissioner Fannie Masemola has told the ad hoc committee he was on leave when Mchunu sent the letter to have the KZN task team disbanded.
Although he described his letter as administrative and within his powers, Mchunu admitted to the committee he had not consulted President Cyril Ramaphosa, who called for the establishment of the task team in 2018 to tackle politically related murders.
On Tuesday, the deputy police minister said he learnt about Mchunu’s decision on social media, adding Mchunu later phoned “in early January to say that the letter that is circulating, he wrote the letter”.
Mathale said he first dismissed it as fake news, but when he “later realised it’s true”, he “didn’t understand what could have motivated him to pen such a letter in the manner that he did”.
Evidence leader Norman Arendse asked if Mathale or his co-deputy minister of police, Polly Boshielo, were consulted.
“Of course he didn’t consult. The only time that he spoke to me was after the letter was out and he was saying, ‘Yes, I’ve penned the letter, don’t be surprised,’” Mathale said.
He didn’t question Mchunu for taking a strong executive stand against the task team, which he communicated within the police network.
However, Mathale said the task team had been doing a good job and saw no reason why Mchunu had singled it out.
“The effectiveness of the team is not in question; they did an excellent job. Since they were instituted, [there has been] progress around killings of activists, what we might call political killings, that took place,” Mathale said.
“In fact, their effectiveness has never been an issue that was questioned within the space.”
Mathale said he attended two briefings in KZN held by the task team. He added from the last task team briefing in March 2024, three months before Mchunu’s appointment, he “didn’t get an impression that there are problems around the team”, adding, “I think everybody was happy with what was presented and what they were doing.”
Mathale said he had often highlighted the need for Mchunu and national commissioner Masemola to have engagements and first align before making presentations in meetings or making decisions.
“There are many instances where we’ve had meetings and agreed that the two of them must have engagement outside ourselves because the absence of that will lead to misunderstanding amongst them, which can create a problem for us. And we are here now because of that,” Mathale said.
He worked “extremely well” with former police minister Bheki Cele, who told the ad hoc committee that his successor Mchunu, did not consult before disbanding the task team and did not respond to subsequent requests for a meeting.
Mathale said he had brief discussions with Mchunu about the structure and the need to strengthen police capacity to reduce the need for task teams. He said the discussions were not specific to the KZN task teams, but rather to strengthen internal capacity within the murder and robbery unit.
“It is in this context that the issues we discussed around the [task team] took place,” he said.
He said the current difficulties within the SAPS did not mean it was in disarray — “it’s intact and able to carry out its responsibilities”.
However, there were “individuals” within the police service who were “problematic”.
Ruto’s cybercrime law is foolish political war against the digital generation:
On the very morning we were waking to the devastating news of veteran politician Raila Odinga’s death, Kenyan President William Ruto signed into law the Computer Misuse and Cybercrime (Amendment) Bill, 2024.
This is a draconian piece of legislation that effectively criminalises dissent. The law states that if you post something that “offends” someone online, you could be fined up to KSh20 million or jailed for 10 years. Ten years for a tweet, a meme, a Facebook post or a TikTok video that the state finds uncomfortable.
This is not a law about protecting the public from cybercrime. It is a law about protecting power from criticism. It is a desperate attempt by a failing regime to silence the country’s most vocal and politically awake generation, the Kenyan youth.
Ruto’s obsession with control and fear is fast becoming the defining feature of his presidency. He came to power branding himself a “hustler”, the voice of the ordinary people. But that mask has fallen. What remains is a ruler terrified of the same young people he once courted, those who tweet, post and protest because they have been denied jobs, dignity and hope. Instead of fixing the economy, he is fixing his grip on power. Instead of creating jobs, he is creating jail sentences.
If Ruto fought corruption with the same zeal he uses to fight free speech, Kenya would be far better off. But he will not. Because corruption sustains his political system, while free speech threatens it.
The president and his allies understand something important — that Kenya’s youth have changed the rules of political engagement. They no longer wait for mainstream media to tell their stories. They have built their own spaces on X, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, where truth travels faster than propaganda and where power can no longer monopolise the narrative. In those spaces, they have exposed government scandals, organised protests and mocked hypocrisy. That is what scares Ruto.
By criminalising “offensive” speech, the regime is not protecting civility. It is criminalising emotion. It is declaring war on anger, satire and expression, the lifeblood of democracy. What does “offensive” even mean? The offense is subjective. To a tyrant, truth itself is offensive. To the corrupt, exposure is offensive. To the liar, facts are offensive. This law, in its vagueness, gives the state infinite power to decide who can speak and who must be silenced.
And yet, history has shown that suppression always births rebellion. Every generation that has been silenced has found new ways to speak. When former president Daniel arap Moi banned student politics in universities, students turned lecture halls into underground movements. The state controlled newspapers and dissidents like Raila Odinga, Kenneth Matiba and this columnist printed their own on secret presses. Today’s youth don’t need printing presses. They have smartphones — millions of them.
Ruto’s government might soon discover that fear does not kill freedom; it fertilises it. The more you try to silence a generation, the louder they become. The more you criminalise their voices, the more creative and defiant those voices grow. You can not jail an entire generation’s imagination.
It is also worth remembering that social media is not a luxury for Kenyan youth. It is survival. It is how small businesses advertise, how artists build audiences, how freelancers find work and how citizens seek accountability. It is the new town square, the new parliament, the new court of public opinion. To attack digital freedom is to attack the very lifeline of a generation that already feels betrayed by a broken economy and a corrupt state.
The new cyberlaw is, therefore, not just unconstitutional, it is immoral. It violates the spirit of Article 33 of Kenya’s constitution, which guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of expression, including freedom to seek, receive or impart information and ideas. It violates the legacy of those, like Raila Odinga, who fought and died for a democratic Kenya, where speech is free and citizens are not ruled by fear.
But beyond its illegality, this law is politically foolish. It signals a regime that is tone-deaf to the times. Kenya’s youth are not the same generation of the 1980s that could be cowed into silence. They are globally connected, politically aware and fearless. They speak multiple languages of memes, of hashtags, of humour, of resistance. They will not be lectured into submission by a government that can not feed them, house them or employ them.
Ruto’s problem is not the youth’s online “offence”. His problem is the truth. And truth has a way of surviving. It slips through cracks, jumps firewalls and finds a home in every whisper, every protest, every post.
The Computer Misuse and Cybercrime (Amendment) Act might silence a few. It might scare many. But it will not kill the idea that birthed Kenya’s digital awakening, that power must always answer to the people. Ruto can jail words, but not ideas. He can fine posts, but not principles. He can intimidate youth, but not history.
Kenya stands today at a dangerous crossroads. We can either slide into a digital dictatorship, where fear replaces freedom, or rise in collective defiance and reclaim the right to speak, to question and to dream. The choice, as always, will not be made by those in power but by those who dare to speak truth to it. President Ruto has chosen fear. Let the youth choose freedom.
Gitobu Imanyara is a human rights and pro-democracy lawyer, publisher and former member of the Kenyan and Pan African parliaments. This article first appeared in The Standard Follow him on X @GitobuImanyara.
UCT hosts key address as Albanese prepares to present Gaza genocide report to UN:
The UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, told an audience at the University of Cape Town on Monday evening that universities, corporations and states have a legal and ethical responsibility to halt what she described as genocide taking place in Gaza.
The event — Liberation and the Academy: The Role of Universities in the Struggle for Palestine — was organised by the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance.
It came a day before Albanese presents her latest report, Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime, to the UN General Assembly via livestream from Cape Town.
Albanese said her report identifies 48 companies and institutions linked to “displacement and replacement”, a policy she argues has removed Palestinians from their land and enabled the expansion of Israeli settlements.
These include technology firms, defence contractors, agribusiness and water infrastructure companies.
“There is not one business that comes to mind that is not involved,” she said.
She argued that the destruction seen in Gaza since October 2023 forms part of a longer process that began decades ago.
“The crime is in the idea that some can take the land and remove the people,” she said.
Outlining legal elements that constitute genocide, she cited forced displacement, “conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction”, and the targeting of cultural identity.
She referenced the destruction of universities, libraries and museums in Gaza, describing it as the erasure of “a people’s identity”.
She further noted the bombing of areas to which civilians were instructed to flee and the widespread collapse of access to water, food and medical care.
Joining her on stage, Palestinian academic Professor Haidar Eid described the impact of the destruction on Gaza’s education system.
“We are not numbers,” he said. Citing figures from the Gaza education ministry, he said more than 20 000 students, and at least 1 700 teachers, had been killed since last October. Eid added, “I have lost more than 50 cousins. I have lost my own family. I have no home to go back to.”
Albanese said the duty to prevent genocide does not rest only on the state alleged to be committing it. Other states must ensure their actions and economic relations do not facilitate violations.
“Governments rarely act from morality; it is people who push them there,” she said, urging the audience to scrutinise their own roles.
“Check what you buy. No political choices hidden in your basket.”
She argued that supply chains linked to the occupation must face public pressure and accountability.
Eid called on South Africa to examine its trade links with Israel and related industries.
“Why are we still exporting coal? Why are we still enabling mercenaries?” he asked. He said that symbolic solidarity must be matched by material consequences.
The rapporteur also drew attention to restrictions placed on Palestine-related speech and organising at universities in other parts of the world. She described a “regression of academic freedom”, referring to actions taken by institutions in North America and Europe to limit debate.
Albanese said the university should remain “a sanctuary for thinking”, warning that silencing dissent undermined democratic principles.
“This is a method to control what people think and how they express themselves,” she said.
Eid similarly emphasised the responsibility of universities to protect academic inquiry.
“We tried so hard as academics,” he said, referencing colleagues killed in Gaza. He said that education had become a target in attempts to “destroy the possibility of life”.
Albanese acknowledged South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice as an example of a state acting on its obligations under international law.
South Africa’s intervention had “opened the door” for other states to act. But she cautioned that, without coordinated international pressure, the situation in Gaza would continue.
“This is a transformative moment,” she said. “Either we reject these strategies and techniques of mass containment — or they will be exported globally.”
She said Gaza had become a test case which could set a precedent for future conflicts.
Several members of the audience asked about accountability for the corporations identified in Albanese’s report. She said public advocacy and legal action could be used to compel compliance with international humanitarian law.
“The trials of public shame” can be effective when courts are slow to act, she said.
Albanese is due to present her report to the UN General Assembly at 4.15pm, South African time, on Tuesday from the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town. A press briefing is expected to follow.
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