Kenyan opposition protests media raid
Mar 8, 2006 (NAIROBI) — Thousands of Kenyan opposition demonstrators took to the streets in Nairobi on Tuesday to call for the government’s ouster over an unprecedented police raid on a major media group last week.
Brandishing banners, about 2,000 protesters demanded the resignation of President Mwai Kibaki and Internal Security Minister John Michuki, who had defended the raid saying it was a matter of state security.
“We’re not happy with our government, we want a change,” said Harum Okeo, 32 and unemployed. “We are calling for snap elections, we are that desperate.”
In the most aggressive assault on media since Kenya’s independence in 1963, at least 30 elite police and paramilitary commandos armed with AK-47s stormed the offices of the Standard Group’s TV station, Kenya Television Network (KTN) and the Standard newspaper last week.
They said the raid was necessary because Standard journalists had received bribes to write false stories inciting ethnic hatred.
The Standard wrote that the raid was believed to be linked to a story written about a secret meeting between Kibaki and Kalonzo Musyoka, a top opposition politician.
“There is no truth in the country anymore,” said William Boit, a member of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement party, running alongside the protesters, who gathered outside ministry buildings.
“(The government) is now fighting freedom of expression, we are killing the snake tonight,” he added, referring to Michuki’s explanation for the raid last Thursday in which he said, “When you rattle a snake you must prepare to be bitten”.
The protesters angered by the comment chanted “Kill the snake, Kill the snake,” and carried banners with similar messages. “If you bite me, I will crush your head,” one banner read.
“BARBARIC”
Thousands of newspapers were burnt at the Standard printing press during the operation. The raid shocked Western nations and Kenyans, who have been accustomed to a vibrant media since Kibaki took power in 2002.
The Standard group, one of the oldest newspapers in east Africa, filed suit on Monday against Michuki and the Kenyan police commissioner Hussein Ali. It also sent a formal complaint to the Kenyan Human Rights Commission.
Ali has said he knew nothing of the raid.
The Kenyan Community Abroad, a U.S.-based organisation, sent a petition to Kibaki on Monday asking him to relieve all those involved in the raid and pursue justice for graft scandals rocking the nation.
“Kenyans are extremely troubled, and indeed disillusioned, by the barbaric, arrogant and defiant act of a few public officers mobilising state resources, for what amounts to criminal activity in attacking the offices and printing press of the Standard Group,” the petition said.
The KCA has become increasingly influential because its members send millions of dollars to their families in Kenya.
Fall out from the raid has increased pressure on Kibaki, who was already reeling from corruption scandals that have triggered the resignations of three ministers.
Opposition politicians seized on the opportunity to call for new elections, an appeal they have made since Kibaki’s humiliating defeat in a constitutional referendum last year.
“We will not be intimidated. We are demanding the resignation of Kibaki,” Nazlin Rajput, an opposition politician and chairwoman of the National Muslim Council of Kenya, said in front of thousands of cheering protesters.
“We are demanding snap elections.”
(Reuters)