The government must commit itself to press freedom through practice by ensuring that journalists are offered the space, autonomy and protection to carry out their work.
Kenyan editors have challenged President Uhuru Kenyatta to demonstrate his commitment to a free press in ensuring that the media space is free of intimidation, threats and attacks when he delivers the State of the Nation address to Parliament on Wednesday.
Kenya Editors’ Guild chairman Churchill Otieno said on Tuesday the government must commit itself to press freedom through practice by ensuring that journalists are offered the space, autonomy and protection to carry out their work.
“Only in this way would it ring loud and clear across this great country that media freedom is a key pillar of our democratic governance and that a country that allows this freedom to thrive reaps the numerous gains that come with it,” he said during a press briefing at the Serena Hotel. The latest report of Reporters’ Without Borders ranks Kenya number 96 on media freedom among other nations of the world.
East African states —Tanzania and Uganda — are ranked number 93 and 117 respectively.
Kenya was under the global spotlight when the government shut down three TV channels in January as they began coverage of Opposition leader Raila Odinga as he took a mock presidential oath. Police were also captured slapping and kicking journalists covering the deportation of politician Miguna Miguna at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
“The ranking illustrates the fact that journalists in East Africa are facing serious threats in the course of their work, falling standards of constitutionalism and challenges to the rule of law,” said Mr Otieno.
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