Kenyan lawmakers have traded blows and the deputy speaker had water thrown on her amid a chaotic parliamentary session called to push through changes to a tough new security bill.Opposition MPs shouted and ripped up copies of the bill, warning that Kenya was becoming a “police state”.
Four lawmakers were assaulted and another two engaged in a fist-fight.
Parliamentary officials adjourned the debate twice, only for the chaos to continue when it resumed a third time.
The government says it needs more powers to fight militant Islamists threatening Kenya’s security.
The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group has stepped up its military campaign in Kenya, killing 64 people in two attacks in the north-eastern Mandera region since last month.
MPs approved President Uhuru Kenyatta’s nomination of former army general Joseph Nkaissery as interior minister, but differences over the bill have continued in one of the most chaotic parliamentary sessions in Kenya’s history.
His predecessor was sacked after the Mandera attacks.
At one point, live television broadcasts of the debate were cut as the session degenerated into chaos, reports the BBC’s Emmanuel Igunza from parliament.
A group of pro-government MPs accosted opposition senators who were in the public gallery and tried to eject them, he says.