The United Nations is the latest joiner in the call for the government to respect the High Court’s order and restore signals of TV stations, which have been off the air since Tuesday, January 30. The UN added its voice to international calls made earlier by the United States and European Union on Thursday where they urged the government to respect freedom of the press.
Standard Group‘s KTN News, Nation Media Group’s NTV and Citizen TV and the Kikuyu-language Inooro TV of Royal Media Services went off the air on for allegedly defying government warnings and broadcasting live from the venue of the contentious “swearing-in” of National Super Alliance (NASA) Coalition leader Raila Odinga. Viewers of the affected channels can only access them via live stream on Youtube.
Interior cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i ominously accused the media of being party to alleged subversion aimed at the violent overthrow of the Jubilee government and said the TV blockade will remain indefinitely.
The media shutdown now in its sixth day has received criticism even from inside Kenya’s border with leaders split between supporting the government or the media. Baringo Senator Gideon Moi who is also the chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Communication Technology on Friday said that media freedom is enshrined in the Constitution, which State swore to abide by and protect.
“Though the government has indicated that the stations are under investigations, they do not have to be off-air for investigations to go on. Let them switch them on as investigations are done and if it turns out that they are culpable, action be taken at that point,” said the Senator.
Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) Secretary General Francis Atwoli said Jubilee had embraced dictatorship and questioned why the government had defied a court order suspending the Communication Authority (CA) of Kenya decision to get the three channels off air.
“Denying the people their freedom to access information and the media the freedom to disseminate information is a dictatorship because these are vital rights,” he said during the burial of human rights activist Ken Wafula in Likuyani, Kakamega County.
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