From Libel to Jail Terms, Press Liberty is On a Roll

Last month, top managers and editors of the Standard Group were held by police for nearly 10 hours over publication of an interview with one of the deported Armenian brothers. They editors were not allowed to have their lawyers present.

This is the atmosphere in which Kenya approaches the World Press Freedom Day, with many negative incidents over the past few years. Apparently, liberty for the media that came with democratisation is being rolled back gradually.

A Kenyan journalist with the alternative Press was recently jailed for libelling a Cabinet minister. And in one of the most callous assaults on the media in independent Kenya, hooded policemen raided the Standard Group last year, terrorised staff, shut down its TV broadcasts, disabled printing presses, made a bonfire of newspapers and carted away computers.

The minister in charge of Internal Security described it as a legitimate police operation.

Not long before then, First Lady Lucy Kibaki entered the Nation Media Group newsroom to protest what she termed unfair coverage of the First Family.

She slapped a journalist who was filming her. When the journalist filed a private prosecution for assault, the Attorney General took over the case and terminated it. The journalist has since gone into exile, citing threats against his life.

The list of misdeeds and infringements is long. Human rights campaigners accuse the Judiciary of allowing itself to be used as a tool to muzzle Press freedom and democracy. They blame the courts for instilling fear in the media through hefty fines for libel. But the courts have desisted from handing out some of the huge awards seen during the Kanu era.

Recently, the latest of many cases filed by Justice minister Martha Karua against local media houses was dismissed by High Court judge Michael Khamoni.

Ms Karua had sued the Sunday Standard for libel, claiming that the newspaper defamed by publishing an article on an alleged incident in Mombasa involving her and the First Lady.

Last year, the High Court awarded Sh5 million compensation to a freelance journalist based in Kisii, Mr Peter Makori, for wrongful arrest and prosecution.

The chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, Mr Maina Kiai, says infringement on Press freedom is deplorable. He appeals to all Kenyans to protest against any Government sponsored move to curtail Press freedom.

A World Bank workshop on access to information, governance and development in Kenya held recently said courts had failed to change with time.

Some lawyers who spoke at the event criticised the trend of hefty fines awarded by courts to public figures, mainly politicians. Nairobi lawyer Wachira Maina raised concerns on how politicians, Government officials and key personalities in both the public and private sectors attempt to muzzle the Press.

A member of the International Commission of Jurists, Kenya chapter, Mr Ken Nyakundi, said although Press freedom is enshrined in the Constitution, it is taken away through other legislation, such as the Official Secrets Act and the Evidence Act.

Mr Nyakundi criticised laws which, over the years, made the civil service embrace a culture of withholding information.

"Information obtained using taxpayers' money is the property of the public and the bureaucrats," he said.

But Information minister Mutahi Kagwe, a former marketing director of the Standard Group, denied that the Government had plans to gag the media.

He, however, said cross-media ownership - where a media house owned both broadcast and print outlets - was an issue of concern to the authorities and other stakeholders. He called for sober debate on the matter to come up with proposals for inclusion in the Information Communication Technology policy, which he intended to table in Parliament.