Mau Mau Uprising movement—announced it would attempt to sue the British government for widespread human rights violations it said were committed against its members. Until September 2003, the Mau Mau movement was banned. Once the ban was removed, former Mau Mau members who had been castrated or otherwise tortured were supported by the Kenya Human Rights Commission, in particular by the Commission's George Morara, in their attempt to take on the British government; their lawyers had amassed 6,000 depositions regarding human rights abuses by late 2002. 42 potential claimants were interviewed from whom five were chosen to prosecute a test case; one of
Operation Anvil (Mau Mau Uprising) Mau" movement, had proliferated the Kikuyuland region. On 20 October the colonial governor declared a state of emergency, initiating efforts by the British military to put down the insurgency. The first months of the British campaign were plagued by a lack of discipline, communication, coherent strategy, and useful intelligence and little progress was made against the Mau Mau. An assault on the Naivasha police station and a massacre of civilians in the village of Lari in March 1953 dramatically escalated the conflict. Mau Mau activity also began to surface in the city of Nairobi, which had a large Kikuyu population.