Thursday, March 02, 2006
Kenyan police raid media group following controversial report
Pisses me off.Kenyan police raid media group following controversial report
NAIROBI : Heavily-armed Kenyan police stormed the headquarters of the country's second biggest media group, shutting down its television station and smashing its printing press, following a report President Mwai Kibaki held secret talks with a political opponent, employees said.
Dozens of balaclava-clad officers carrying AK-47 assault rifles raided the Standard Group's offices shortly after midnight, seizing computers and transmission equipment for the independent Kenya Television Network (KTN), they said.
Police then smashed the printing press and set light to thousands of freshly-published copies of Thursday's edition of the 104-year-old The Standard.
The raid, the first-ever attack on a mainstream media outlet since independence from Britain in 1963, sparked widespread condemnation and calls for Kibaki's resignation.
The government said initially it was not aware of the attack and pledged the investigate.
"I am trying to find out what has happened and I will get back to the media when I do ... I do not know who is responsible for this as I said I have just seen it on NTV ... I really cannot say anything until I find out," Information Minister Mutahi Kagwe said in live interview on the independent television station NTV.
During the raid, which followed the arrest of three Standard Group journalists on Tuesday, police briefly detained four KTN employees and confiscated recorded tapes and mobile telephones, staffers said.
The police were looking for news anchor Njoroge Mwaura, who read on air a scathing editorial on press freedom shortly before the raid, but he had already left the building.
"It is shock, anger and disappointment," said the Standard Group's chief Tom Mshindi.
"Kenyans should rise and stop this draconian measures by a dictatorship government," said powerful former roads minister Raila Odinga, who fell out with Kibaki.
"This is a setback not only to the media, but to the gains made by ordinary Kenyans," said opposition Kenya African National Union (KANU) party leader Uhuru Kenyatta. "This is draconian, it is as if we have returned to the Middle Ages."
The Kenya Union of Journalists urged media houses to boycott positive news on Kibaki's regime for the next two weeks.
"Disagreement with views cannot be the reason to attack media houses," Kenya Human Rights Commission said in a statement, while the International Commission of Jurists condemned "scuttling and muzzling of media freedom."
"It is shocking. It is a sad day for press freedom given that the gains in media freedom we had gained have been undone in one night," said Rose Kimotho, the head of Kenya's Media Owners Association.
The crackdown followed the arrest earlier in the week of three Standard journalists -- weekend editions managing editor Chacha Mwita, news editor Dennis Onyango and reporter Ayub Savula -- over Saturday's report alleging that Kibaki had held secret talks with Kalonzo Musyoka, a former minister who was fired for campaigning against a draft constitution.
The draft, which would have given Kibaki more power in the first changes to the country's 1962 independence charter, was resoundingly defeated in a referendum last November.
Kibaki's press office and Musyoka have denied that any such meeting took place and government spokesman Alfred Mutua has demanded the Standard retract the article and apologise, which it has not done.
Global press watchdogs Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders have called the arrests an attempt to criminalise journalism and demanded their release.
"We are disturbed by the growing belligerence of the government," RSF said.
Kenya's high court was set Thursday to hear a suit filed by the Standard seeking the immediate release of the three since they have not been charged with any offence.
- AFP/ms
