NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 24 – The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) is calling for the arrest of those involved in the attack on journalists during an Orange Democratic Movement event at Chungwa house today.
In a statement, the council’s Chief Executive Officer David Omwoyo pointed out that Moses Nyamori of the Standard and Luke Awich who works with Radio Africa group were singled out and attacked while covering the de-camping of Kajiado Governor Joseph ole Lenku from Jubilee party.
Omwoyo wondered why the party allowed the orchestration of the violence against the journalists and urged the Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai to investigate the matter expeditiously.
“Profiling of journalist by leaders and supporters of political parties goes against Article 34 and 35 of the constitution on freedom of media and access to information,” he stated.
The ODM Party through its Director of Communications Philip Etale however stated that the party is investigating the incident and those involved will be held to account.
It is alleged that two journalists were attacked due to a story they reported on the party’s nomination that did not augur well with the top officials within the party.
Head of security within the party Benard Kadundo is said to have roughed up Nyamori and physically ejected him from the party headquarters.
The Media regulator now wants the ODM leader Raila Odinga to take action by condemning the incident and disowning the acts of violence.
“The Media Council of Kenya calls on ODM leadership led by its leader Raila Odinga who was hosting today’s event to disown such acts of violence against the media and commit to non-interference in the work of media workers in all its activities hence forth,” he noted.
At the same time, the Kenya Union of Journalist have called for speedy investigations into the incident and culprits prosecuted without delay.
“We demand that the hooligans who believe that assaulting journalist is the only way to express the misguided frustration are identified and handed over to the police by the conveners of today’s news event immediately,” Secretary General Eric Oduor stated.
Oduor pointed out that incase of similar incident as the August 9th political contest heats up, political parties and conveners of the political events will be held culpable.
“As the country prepares for the general elections slated for August 9 politicians must guarantee journalists their safety when they are invited for press conferences and take responsibility when ugly incidents lie todays occur,” he said.
A similar incident occurred in 2017 when Citizen TV’s Francis Gachuri and NTV’s Jane Gatwiri were roughed up in National Super Alliance event.
The goons had invaded the venue of the meeting seeking out the Citizen TV crew to express their dissatisfaction over the manner the station relayed results from the 290 polling stations during the repeat presidential election in which President Uhuru Kenyatta was declared winner with over 98 percent of the votes cast.
