Jomo Kenyatta Kenya remained a monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. In November 1963, Kenyatta's government introduced a law making it a criminal offence to disrespect the Prime Minister, with exile as a punishment. Kenyatta's personality became a central aspect of the creation of the new state. In December, Nairobi's Delamere Avenue was renamed Kenyatta Avenue, and a bronze statue of him was erected beside the country's National Assembly. Photographs of Kenyatta were widely displayed in shop windows, and a likeness of his face was also printed on the new currency. In 1964, Oxford University Press published a
Jomo Kenyatta insisted that it was necessary; in a March 1961 speech, he described Kenyatta an "African leader to darkness and death" and stated that if he were released, violence would erupt. This indefinite detention was widely interpreted internationally as a reflection of the cruelties of British imperialism. Calls for his release came from the Chinese government, India's Nehru, and Tanganyika's Prime Minister Julius Nyerere. Ghana's President Nkrumah personally raised the issue with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and other UK officials, with the Ghanaian government offering Kenyatta asylum in the event of his release. Resolutions calling for his release were produced