‘Free up the ganja’: Rastafarians in Kenya fight to legalise marijuana

Marijuana plays a sacred role among Rastafari followers and they say a ruling to criminalise it violates their rights About a dozen people sang along to the pulsing vibrations of drums and a tambourine in a dimly lit room in Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera neighbourhood. For more than an hour they belted out song after song, the lyrics suffused with references to Ethiopia, Jah, Zion, Rastafari and Haile Selassie I. One song went: “No night in a Zion, there is no night there / Hallelujah there is n...

By Carlos Mureithi in Nairobi