Kenya ‘partially free’, assault on media rising

Kenya marks the World Press Freedom Day today with blots on its track record on the media environment. Global press institutions have described her as ‘partially free’.

The country’s vibrant and robust media is facing fresh forms of assault under the two years of Jubilee administration and signs are that civil liberties are increasingly being threatened.

The MO Ibrahim index, Article 19, Committee to Protect Journalists, Freedom House describe Kenya’s state of media as partially free.

Two days ago, an Eldoret-based journalist John Kituyi was attacked and bludgeoned to death as he walked home.

In Kitale, journalist John Oroni was sentenced to jail over criminal defamation after he failed to raise Sh3 million the court awarded against him.

He went in and desperate friends and family have been working on how to salvage him. Two weeks ago saw the return of unwarranted attacks on journalists Nehemia Okwemba (NTV) and Reuben Ogacha (Citizen TV) by armed policemen as they investigated cases of officers who had confiscated livestock from locals.

Last week, criminal investigation officers summoned two editors from the Nation Media Group, Macharia Gaitho and Bernard Namunane over a story in a case where there is no known complainant.

Elsewhere, popular cartoonist Gado has closed shop after his caricatures were labelled as embarrassing to the powers-that-be and his creative works left bureaucrats with an egg on their faces.

A Kenyan regional publication The East African was banned in Tanzania and the number of threats to individual journalists from both commercial interests and the State agencies have forced a number of journalists into self-censorship.

Human rights lawyer and publisher Gitobu Imanyara says in the war against terror, journalists have become victims too as they are subjected to increased intolerance.

“Kenya cannot be a democratic country nor cherish values of constitutionalism if media is constantly under attack, editors summoned and journalists attacked,” Imanyara said.

Article 19 director Henry Maina says the situation of civil liberties in the country is wanting and increasingly threats to media freedom have rolled back gains from the past.

Maina warned that laws that allow interception of information, publication of false news, criminal defamation, Official Secrets Act and Security Laws amendment Act contain provisions that are dangerous to the practice of journalism.

Kenya Editors’ Guild chair Linus Kaikai says: “It has been a tough two years for the media. The industry has been swinging between hope and despair as legislative agenda targets to curtail the very freedoms that make work of journalists possible.”