A four-hour outage of the popular social media application Telegram was registered at the height of the Saba Saba protests, according to an internet observatory group.
Netblock reported that the outage was recorded during the morning hours of Monday, July 7. The outage coincided with the Saba Saba Day morning when Kenyans woke up to police roadblocks and a disrupted transport network.
While Netblocks did not explicitly reveal the reason for the outage, most outages are normally associated with attempts to curtail communication during political unrests.
“Note: Metrics show a 4-hour disruption to Telegram in Kenya this morning,” the observatory group stated.
“The incident follows a pattern of earlier restrictions and comes on the 35th anniversary of the Saba Saba protests calling for free elections,” Netblocks added.
According to Netblocks, the outage was observed from 4am to 8am across multiple Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
This disruption occurred amid fears of a wider internet shutdown in the country, which would result in widespread disruption to communication, particularly in the digital realm.
A similar outage was seen during the June 25 protests, where Kenyans took to the streets in several areas across the country.
“Confirmed: Live metrics show restrictions to the messaging platform Telegram in Kenya are now in effect,” Netblocks said on Wednesday, June 25.
Ahead of the planned Saba Saba Day protests, which threatened to bring operations across the country to a near standstill, the National Police Service (NPS) had issued a warning to protesters regarding how the protests should be conducted.
In a statement issued on Sunday, July 6, the service warned that it would deal with all armed protesters as per the law, should they be arrested with weapons during the protests.
Protesters intending to breach protected areas were also warned of tough police action against them.
Following ugly scenes witnessed at major business operations in Nairobi and other towns during previous protests, where goons broke into shops and looted, NPS warned that its officers would take stern action on such acts of vandalism.
Additionally, the public had also been cautioned against provoking police officers who are lawfully carrying out their delegated duties.
