Ten protesters among them three human rights activists were arrested by police in Mombasa on Monday, October 7.
The 10, who included long-distance truck drivers were held at the Nyali Police Station for being involved in what was termed by authorities as an illegal protest.
The truckers were protesting against a controversial order requiring traders to move traders all their cargo through the Standard Gauge Railway to an inland container depot in Nairobi, effectively rendering truckers jobless.
Speaking in a live TV interview outside Nyali Police Station, Mvita MP Abdulswamud Shariff Nassir said, "When you have a political system that is full of deceit and one that feels manipulating the emotions of people is nothing this (demonstration) is the result."
The MP declared that the demos would not cease insisting that, "when you stop the livelihood of a whole society you need to expect that they are going to react."
The Long Distance Drivers and Allied Workers Union Secretary Nicholas Mbugua had asked the government to allow 50% of the cargo to be transported on road and the other half be transported by rail.
The arrest of the three activists comes days after Transport Cabinet Secretary James Machariah and his Interior counterpart Fred Matiang'i promised the transporters that the transportation of all cargo from the port by rail had been suspended.
In response, Mvita MP said, "they lied (Machariah and Matiang'i). That is the outcome. They put up a very large media conference and media advert but things are different on the ground."
Nassir went on to add that a suspension was unnecessary when, according to him, the directive was illegal since it created a monopoly. He argued that the Competition Authority of Kenya needed to have stepped in.
Observers held that Mombasa’s economy that gravitates around the port was under threat in what some observers descrived as a slow and painful death.
“The transport sector is dying before our own eyes, firms are now laying off drivers, everything is moving to Nairobi,” said Kenya Transporters Association (KTA) chief executive Dennis Ombok.
