Veteran lawyer and human rights crusader Gitobu Imanyara has shared a disturbing account of his arrest and detention during Kenya’s turbulent 1990s fight for multi-party democracy.

In a candid TV interview on Monday, June 23, 2025, Imanyara recalled being taken to a place he never imagined existed – underground cells hidden beneath the Nairobi Traffic Police Headquarters on Ngong Road.

“I didn’t know there were underground cells there,” he said. “That’s when I discovered, because I was put in one.”

Imanyara had been arrested just before a planned rally at Kamukunji Grounds meant to demand an end to single-party rule. He was part of a team organizing the protest in support of democracy icons Charles Rubia and Kenneth Matiba. Paul Muite, another pro-democracy lawyer, was also helping coordinate their legal and political efforts.

The ordeal took a dark turn when, around midnight, police pulled him out of his cell and forced him into a blue Kombi.

“I was told to sit at the back, and then the policemen started bashing me with their boots while singing, as they drove around the city,” he recalled on NTV’s ‘Fixing The Nation’.

He later realized they had taken him underground.

“I could feel movement, like I was in a lift. When it stopped and opened, I was thrown out. I could hear screams…I wasn’t the first one there.”

The underground cells, he said, were inhumane, waterlogged and unsanitary.

“Your feet would swell. You’d get chest infections,” he recounted. “After five or six days, I was served with a detention order.”

As his health worsened, authorities transferred him to Naivasha, where he was charged with sedition and subjected to further torture. At one point, he passed out and woke up in Kenyatta Hospital.

“I found myself in Kenyatta Hospital, chained to a bed for three and a half months.”

Despite the trauma, Imanyara stressed that his suffering was just one among many.

“Many Kenyans went through worse and never lived to tell the story,” he said.

Imanyara cautioned against forgetting the painful history of Kenya’s democratic journey and urged current leaders to uphold the hard-won freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.

“We must not allow President William Ruto to take us backwards. His priority should be to defend the Constitution, not dismantle it.”