Dear Govt, journalism is not a crime—respect press freedom!
Kameme TV reporter journalist Catherine Wanjeri Kariuki writhes in pain after police shot her on the left thigh on July 16, 2024.
What you need to know:
- Recent violent attacks on journalists Catherine Wanjeri wa Kariuki and Macharia Gaitho signal a troubling decline in press freedom in Kenya.
- The Kenya Union of Journalists reports that restrictive policies and financial constraints are exacerbating the situation.
- Journalists demand that the government respect their right to report freely and safely, highlighting the critical need for media independence.
When I first told my father I wanted to be a journalist, he tried to dissuade me. He pointed to a female photojournalist we saw on TV, roughed up and her hair pulled, as a warning.
"Do you want to end up like her?" he asked. It was the late 90s, under the Moi regime, where violence, threats, abductions, and killings of journalists were rampant. I was young, passionate, and undeterred. But recent events make me feel we've regressed to those dark days.
In a recent interview, Kameme TV reporter Catherine Wanjeri wa Kariuki, who was shot in the leg four times while covering anti-Finance Bill protests in Nakuru, described her experience as a nightmare. "I was targeted," she said. "A week earlier, a police officer had hit me with a teargas canister. Previously, another officer told me I was marked. Lodging three bullets in my body wasn’t a mistake. I had my press jacket on. Someone knew what they were doing."
In a separate incident a week ago, veteran journalist Macharia Gaitho was abducted by state agents, but was later released on grounds that it was false identity, claims which Mr Gaitho refuted while recounting the ordeal in an article in the Daily Nation. He said it "…seemed like a blatant lie, but if true, it spoke volumes on the ineptitude of Mr Amin’s criminal intelligence network."
These incidents spotlight the declining state of press freedom in Kenya, but they're not isolated. The Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ), in a 2024 desktop review, found media freedom in Kenya has been declining due to new policy guidelines, physical attacks, threats from state agencies, online trolling, financial constraints, and layoffs.
The findings were presented by Eric Oduor, the KUJ secretary general, during a media freedom dialogue held by the Kenya Media Sector Working Group in partnership with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation on July 19.
Mr Oduor highlighted that new advertising policies were introduced at the beginning of the year, limiting government advertising to a single newspaper and leading to a directive from the PS Ministry of ICT and Digital Economy to all government departments and agencies. These policies aimed to cut off revenue for the media.
The government needs to understand that the media exists to serve the citizens, not the political elite. The press and the state were never meant to be friends. Kenyans should be deeply worried if it ever appears that way, for it will mean that journalists have stopped speaking truth to power.
"It's high time that the government led by Dr William Ruto, gives us space to work. We want our freedom back," Ms Kariuki said, and her sentiments represent those of thousands of journalists in Kenya, who just want to do their job. Journalists are not criminals, and it’s high time that the government stopped treating them as such.
Ms Oneya comments on social and gender topics. @FaithOneya; [email protected]
