These tweets with images supposedly of Saba Saba anti-government protests in Kenya’s Meru, Nairobi and Kitale towns are FALSE.

Saba Saba (Seven Seven) is symbolic and refers to the date 7 July. It was first commemorated in Kenya in 1990, when demonstrations were held against single-party governance.

Ever since, Kenyans have used Saba Saba to protest and raise grievances against the government.

In the run-up to 7 July 2023, the opposition announced it will hold countrywide protests against the high-cost of living on Saba Saba day.

But are these photos related to the 2023 Saba Saba anti-government protests?

The first post had two photos supposedly of the situation in Meru town.

We performed a Google reverse image search and established that the pictures are from protests at Maseno University and Kibera respectively.

The second post has the picture of a military tanker and a building on fire.

The text accompanying the image reads: “Situation write now at Nairobi CBD. KDF has taken charge (Sic)”.

A Google reverse image search shows that the photo was taken during the Romanian revolution that happened in December 1989.

The final post has an image purportedly of a protest scene in Kitale town.

By performing a Google reverse image search, we found that the photo is from India and it was taken in May 2023 at Rajasthan’s Hanumangarh after a military plane crashed in the area.

PesaCheck has examined tweets with photos supposedly of the 2023 Saba Saba anti-government protests in Kenya’s Meru, Nairobi and Kitale towns and found them to be FALSE.

This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.

By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.

Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.

This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Rodgers Omondi and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editorDoreen Wainainah.

PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape the government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visitpesacheck.org.

PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.