Stop police attacks on scribes in demos
Dozens of journalists have found themselves on the receiving end from security agencies during protests by Generation Z against the Finance Bill 2024 and concerns about governance by the Kenya Kwanza government.
A number have been arrested and even locked up in dingy police cells, while others have been attacked by police officers while covering the protests. Some media houses have even received blanket closure threats from State agencies. The most targeted scribes have been those found taking pictures and videos of unarmed protestors being brutalised by police.
There have been several attempts by the Kenya Kwanza administration to muzzle media practitioners from covering the protests, particularly the brutal force meted out by the police through physical attacks, threats or detention.
Memories of an incident where a TV journalist was recently thrown out of a moving police car are still fresh in the minds of Kenyans.
During yesterday’s protests, like in the previous ones, a number of pressmen were deliberately tear-gassed and their tools of work confiscated.
Despite incessant protests from the media stakeholders such as the Kenya Union of Journalists, the Media Council of Kenya, media houses and the civil society, the deafening silence from authorities have only helped to embolden the security officers.
Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome, a man openly known for his disdain for journalists and any dissenting voice against the Kenya Kwanza administration, needs to come out strongly to end the merging pattern of attacks on journalists.
Koome should not try to hide his failures as the country’s top cop by using his officers to suppress the press freedom. Neither should he be allowed to use the power of a gun to muzzle journalists from exposing unlawful killings, abductions and torture of victims.
Koome would go down in the annals of history as the police chief who has never investigated or disciplined police officers who forcibly, violently, or lethally disperse peaceful and unarmed protests. Equally, police killings, abductions and beatings during protests have gone unpunished during Koome’s reign.
Give journalists ample time and space to exercise their professional responsilities.
