Kenya Correspondents Association (KCA) is alarmed by increasing threats and attacks on journalists by security forces and other actors ahead of Kenya’s March 4, 2013 General Elections.
A journalist with the Star Newspaper based in Homa Bay Town in Western Kenya was on Saturday beaten up by paramilitary security personnel as he covered a confrontation between two rival candidates ahead of the Elections due on Monday March 4, 2013.
Habil Onyango was kicked and punched by the security personnel locally known as the General Service Unit (GSU), as he covered the confrontation between the supporters of two parliamentary candidates in the town.
The GSU officers declined to recognize his press card and flung him into a lorry before driving him to the local police station where they eventually released him, in great pain. They attempted to take away his camera.
“We condemn the attack on the journalist and demand that he and his colleagues in the area are left to work without hindrance and threats, which they have had to endure since mid January after chaotic political party primaries,” said William Oloo Janak, the Kenya Correspondents National Chairman.
Janak said a number of journalists have been operating under threats and a climate of fear over the electioneering period, especially over the past two months. He said during the party primaries, a number of journalists reported threats in Homabay, Migori and Siaya in the Nyanza Region
Reports of threats, and in some cases, attacks, have also been received from journalists in Nandi, Eldoret, Kitale and Nakuru in the Rift Valley, in Nanyuki in Central Kenya, Nairobi, the capital, Mombasa and Tana River in the Coast Region.
The Homa Bay OCPD, Francis Kumut, yesterday confirmed to KCA that he had received reports of the attack on the journalist but could only promise “to investigate”.
“We call on the security forces to not only stop attacks on journalists but to offer the necessary protection to guarantee their safety and security on the polling day and into the Post Election period,” added Janak.
Kenyans go to the polls on Monday 4, 2013 to elect a President and five other representatives including the governors for 47 counties in one of the most complex electoral processes since independence fifty years ago.
The last General Elections held on December 27, 2007 resulted in a costly dispute after the presidential Elections were bungled, leading to a month-long post election violence which left more than 1,000 people killed and approximately 600,000 people displaced.
More than 200 Kenyan journalists were affected by the conflict, either through threats, attacks and trauma. Some of the journalists were either displaced or had to flee from their work places because of threats and fear of violence which was largely ethnic in nature.
Despite a new constitution guaranteeing more media freedom and access to information and efforts by the media industry to prepare for the elections, there remain serious challenges to journalists.
The journalists have again been deployed to cover the elections without adequate safety equipment, insurance and transport facilitation by media organizes. The most affected are the field based correspondents.
For further information contact the KCA Secretariat, Kenbanco House, Nairobi, Tel: +254-722697927, kenyacorrespondents11@gmail.com
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