Soon after the Shakahola deaths, renewed calls came for the closer regulation of faith, but religious leaders have again resisted the move, saying the Shakahola massacre was an isolated crime.
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“We find the narrative being driven that churches and by extension religion need to be regulated is a façade meant to divert on the real problem — that the state has failed to play its role in dealing with a crime,” said Catholic Bishop Martin Kivuva Musonde in a statement in April after a meeting of the country’s religious leaders.
In May, President William Ruto announced a task force to review Kenya’s legal and regulatory governance of religious organizations to identify gaps in the law that allow the growth of extremist groups in the country.
“We recognize that this task force was established on the backdrop of the saddening deaths of hundreds of Kenyans at Shakahola,” Canon Chris Kinyanjui, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Kenya and a member of the task force, said on Aug. 8. But he charged Kenya’s security agencies with failing to “act on reports that were made to them” and called on the task force to “make recommendations that promote rather than curtail the exercise of the freedom of religion on account of failure by state agencies.”
This article originally appeared here.
