MP John Kiarie censured after claiming OccupyParliament protest photos were 'fake'

Declaring himself a photo expert, who could easily tell a digitally-altered photo, Kiarie told the House that some of the photos widely shared on the internet following the Tuesday protests were actually old photos downloaded from various protests across the world.

"The committee was already in the process of engaging Kenyans way before a fake protest was organised... Some of the photos we were seeing, I can tell you as a graphic editor, that they do not belong to this country," KJ claimed.

The legislator went on to suggest that crafty Kenyans were cleverly regurgitating old photos in order to drive a non-existent narrative. 

"Photos were being taken off the internet and being edited and posed as Gen Z. I am a photo expert and I can point out to you photos that were edited to look like they were in the streets of Nairobi but they were not," he claimed.

"Every digital image has a digital footprint. If a photo was taken in 2020 and was being used (yesterday) we can tell from the metadata of that photo."

Kiarie's comments irked Kenyans online, with many castigating him for trivializing a matter as sensitive as the Finance Bill, and others, unable to reconcile the old 'Redykyulass' comedian to the man he had morphed into.

"Oh, so the hundreds of Gen Z who were arrested and held all day in various cells were also digitally-altered? All those arrests are from 2020 too? Come on!" someone commented.

Someone else said, "To imagine that this same man used to parody Moi-era sycophants during his days as a comedian. And now, he's become the same men he used to mock! What a waste of talent!"

On his part, photographer Marcus Olang simply said, "Well, he became ridiculous..."

Slamming the MP, too, was Florence Muthoni who said, "Imagine being relegated to the same group as Kariuki Chotara, Mulu Mutisya, Kihika Kimani and JJ Kamotho! We've lived long enough to see this clown turn into the subjects of his art! Shame!"

Kiarie's comments mirrored those made by his Kitui South Member of Parliament counterpart Rachel Nyamai who claimed that a girl she was educating had texted her expressing concern about the Finance Bill 2024.

According to Nyamai, she asked the girl why she had gone for the protests despite the taxes being dropped and she told her she was creating content in order to get TikTok views.

"I watched one of the girls I pay school fees for and she was in the streets. She had written a message to me the previous day, and I asked her, you told me that it was about taxation on motor vehicles and bread, why are you in the street?

"The girl told me that she was not in the street concerning the bill, she was doing TikTok. And she was swinging very nicely. She told me that she wanted to get views for TikTok,” said Nyamai.