Nairobi: Kenya’s govern-ment is undermining press freedom amid what a media rights group said yesterday is a “deteriorating climate” in the country.
The report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) paints a grim picture of a media industry under siege with journalists “vulnerable to legal harassment, threats, or attack, while news outlets are manipulated by advertisers or politician-owners”.
Compared to neighbouring Somalia, where more than 40 journalists have been killed since 2009, or Ethiopia, where journalists and bloggers are regularly jailed on terrorism charges, Kenya's assault on the press is more subtle but still worrying.
The CPJ and the Media Council of Kenya, a regulatory body, said there were 19 threats against journalists in the first five months of this year, or “almost one a week”.
One journalist has been murdered this year, with the CPJ saying the April killing of John Kituyi, editor and publisher of the small Mirror Weekly newspaper in Eldoret, was “directly related” to his work as a journalist.
Despite passing a new, liberal constitution in 2010, Kenya's government has since introduced “a series of laws that undermine self-regulation and allow for harsh fines and jail terms for journalists”.
At the time both he and his running mate, William Ruto, were indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity, one of a list of “sensitive topics” identified by the CPJ. The case againstKenyatta has since collapsed, while Ruto's trial continues.
“This is one of the most hostile regimes we have seen to press freedom,” David Ohito, an editor at Kenya's Standard Goup media company, told CPJ. AFP
