After three days of illegal detention, five anti-imperialist activistsāJoti Brar, Lee Sang-hun, Song Dan-bi, Dimitris Patelis, and a French nationalāhave been released without charges. The arrests occurred on May 12 during protests against the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi; a gathering co-hosted by Emmanuel Macron and President William Ruto that Pan-Africanists have condemned as "a rebranded offensive of imperialist neocolonisation".
Police fired teargas and discharged shots into the air to disperse the protesters, who chanted "France Out of Africa" outside the Kenyatta International Convention Centre. The arrests coincided with Macronās televised claim that anti-French sentiment in Africa is manufactured by Russian disinformationāa narrative contradicted by the presence of activists from Britain, South Korea, and Greece who gathered under the banner of the āPan-Africanism Summit Against Imperialism (PASAI).ā
The PASAI counter-summit, held simultaneously, rejected what it called "the new barracks of colonial domination" and issued the Nairobi Declaration from Below, demanding reparative justice, debt cancellation, and the dismantling of the CFA francāa colonial-era currency system that still forces 14 African nations to deposit half their foreign reserves in the French treasury.
The releases were celebrated by global anti-imperialist activists, who saw them as a rejection of Franceās attempt to rebrand its influence in East Africa after it was expelled from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.