FALSE: Kenya has not introduced the death penalty for wildlife poachers
A Facebook post claiming that poachers arrested in Kenya will face the death penalty is FALSE.
The post, which has been shared more than 600 times, adds that President Uhuru Kenyatta introduced the death penalty to curb poaching activities in the country.
In a response to PesaCheck, Kenya Wildlife Services Communications Specialist Paul Udoto said that no amendments have been made to the law.
According to section 92 of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act of 2013,
Any person who commits an offence in respect of an endangered or threatened species or in respect of any trophy of that endangered or threatened species shall be liable upon conviction to a fine of not less than twenty million shillings or imprisonment for life or to both such fine and imprisonment.
The Ministry of Tourism, the Kenya Wildlife Service and State House have not announced the alleged introduction of the death penalty for poachers.
The claim began circulating in 2018 after international media agencies reported on the alleged death penalty.
PesaCheck has looked into the claim that poachers arrested in Kenya will face the death penalty and finds it 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 news 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 researcher Albert Mwangeka, was edited by PesaCheck Content Editor Ann Ngengere and was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
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 news 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 researcher Albert Mwangeka, was edited by PesaCheck Content Editor Ann Ngengere and was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
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 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 a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).