Interesting piece and food for thought. My take is that if we set aside for a moment all these sections of the law that you have mentioned and ask ourselves how far the law has been stretched to arrest Robert?

Without the Communications Act has he run afoul of any other laws? Would he behave the same way offline that he has online? You raised the issue of how he uses this behavior for monetary gain. That’s his business model. Do lets set aside the ‘offending’ laws for a moment and ask ourselves if he behaved in that manner say in a party. Some people abused may turn the other cheek and walk away. Some may turn back and hit him. It just so happens that Alfred Mutua decided to fight back. Now we can argue the merits and demerits of what has happened to Robert. But I’m sure we can’t argue about the rights of the offended.

The law is an Ass.. So my question is this – Should you deliberately time and again goad the ass to kick you? We know that the Ass has a nasty kick. What are the odds that you will finally be kicked? Hard?

I hope that, in having this discussion, we don’t forget the original story that started all of this: the one about Mrs. Karen Kandie, the Kenyan woman who was assaulted and is now having a hard time getting justice.

When I visited Kenya for the first time back in 2010, Robert was the only Kenyan tweep to reach out to me and provide assistance sorting a few things that I needed while on location in Kenya to make my stay comfortable. He never asked anything in return and I can truly say, Robert went far out of his way to help. I will never forget that. Thank you Robert!

When Robert hits out at others online there must be good reason for this.

When someone makes a death threat against you, then I’d say thats good enough reason, I don’t see why slamming someone who threatened you online should be wrong. I have personally had a death threat and I can say that this rattles most people to the bone. If I was in Roberts shoes I would have hit back even harder online. Especially considering that the threat comes from a government official. Government officials have huge klout and can quickly have people arrested and assaulted. All we as private people have is twitter and other social media channels and I think Robert defended himself by posting to twitter. I would have done the same thing although I would have uploaded the audio recording of the threat 😉 hint hint Robert.

Lets not forget that Robert has received a death threat once before: http://walala-hoi.blogspot.com/2011/06/robert-alai-man-gay-man-who-took-photos.html The death threat is still online, and a few days after that death threat Robert was very seriously assaulted http://twitpic.com/photos/RobertAlai

Are those responsible behind bars? Shame on you Kenya!

If Robert is assaulted again, thanks to his tweets, we will all know who instigated it and as a community can take action against this person.

@whiteafrican – Where do you get the info that Nokia, Google, iHub and Skunkworks have banned & blacklisted Robert?