A proposed finance bill sparked mass protests in the streets of Nairobi and across other cities in Kenya this week.

Demonstrators, many of them young people, protested in front of Kenya's Parliament building on Thursday morning for the second time this week. They claimed the bill's tax hikes and levies would make the country's cost-of-living crisis worse. Police fired tear gas into the crowd, and hundreds were arrested.

Bold young protesters from what is often referred to as Generation Z, or Gen Z — the term generally used to describe people born during the late 1990s and early 2000s — expressed their anger at how the government in Kenya has been offloading its problems onto citizens. "We are already paying taxes and they are not doing much with it — it gets stolen. So how can we trust them with more?" Makena Kahuha, an actor and content creator, told DW.

Another protestor, Pamela Muriuki, is also disappointed: "They prefer allegiance to the government instead of the voters who voted them in," she says.

In contrast to previous protests led by opposition party members, demonstrations were driven by young citizens who chanted anti-government slogans and waved placards disparaging the bill.

These demonstrations were different from other mass protests seen previously in Kenya. This time, young protesters filmed clashes with police officers with their smartphones, publishing them........

© Deutsche Welle