From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013
Today is World Press Freedom Day. Although the day gives people the chance to pay tribute to media professionals who risked or lost their lives in the line of duty, in Kenya as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports-Kenya: 2013 – Committee to Protect Journalists, the day is marked at the time two investigative journalists have received death threats.
Mohammed Ali and John-Allan Namu, investigative journalists from the private KTN television network received threats from anonymous callers and via social networking sites on Wednesday, according to Namu and Willis Angira, associate producer for KTN.
David Ohito, news editor of The Standard, which is also affiliated with KTN, told CPJ that the threats were linked to an investigative story aired on KTN two weeks ago, called “Inside Story: Death in Ten Minutes” that suggested foul play in a helicopter crash that killed former Interior Minister George Saitoti.
It is also being celebrated at the time police were also implicated in the January 2009 murder of Weekly Citizen journalist Francis Nyaruri, shortly after he investigated corruption within the police department.
Nyaruri was brutally murdered in western Kenya in January 2009 while investigating suspected corruption in a police construction project. The investigation has not yielded arrests to date.
Just recently a correspondent for The Star daily newspaper was found dead Sunday morning in his house in the coastal city of Mombasa. A housemate found reporter Bernard Wesonga with blood on his nose and mouth at around 11:30 a.m. according to Star Deputy Editor Charles Kerich.
Local journalists said Wesonga, 27, was with friends at a local pub in Mombasa Saturday night, leaving around 10 p.m. Wesonga had told friends he recently received anonymous threats via text message in connection with a story that described allegations of unlawful shipment and sale of fertilizer that had exceeded its expiration date. Authorities have not established a cause of death.
Against the background that on Saturday, March 9, 2013, US President Barack Obama made a statement in a gala for journalists in Washington that appeared to suggest that Kenya is not a safe destination for foreign correspondents.
“They’ve risked everything to bring us stories from places like Syria and Kenya, stories that need to be told,” he said. Syria is currently in the midst of a bloody civil war that was started on the pretext of removing its dictatorial ruler Assad from power. The conflict in Syria has killed more than 70,000 people.
The period following the Kenya’s last presidential elections in 2007 was marred by widespread ethnic violence. Over a thousand people were killed. Kenya’s journalists, especially those working independently, found themselves the targets of public anger, police intolerance and political fury. Many were threatened, injured, attacked and had equipment damaged or taken.
In Nairobi the day will be marked with two key celebrations:
1)The regional journalists convention – Second Annual Journalism Excellence Awards (AJEA) Gala, an event that seeks to acknowledge, identify and promote excellence in media in Kenya
2) The Executive Council meeting of World Association of Press Councils (WAPC, which will draw participants of press councils from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Somalia Burundi, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Nepal, the United States of America, Pakistan, India, Malawi, and North Cyprus among others.
These events will focus on safety and protection of journalists and encourage Development Journalism in Kenya in respect to Vision 2030.
Each year since 1997, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize is awarded to honor the work of an individual or an organization defending or promoting freedom of expression, especially if it puts the individual’s life at risk.
The award is named after a journalist murdered in 1986 after denouncing drug barons. Last year it was awarded posthumously to a Russian investigative reporter who was murdered in a contract-style killing in 2006.
Established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1993 as an outgrowth of the Seminar on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press, World Press Freedom Day has only been celebrated since 1993. This seminar took place in Namibia in 1991 and led to the adoption of the Windhoek Declaration on Promoting Independent and Pluralistic Media.
It has much deeper roots in the United Nations, Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights which states that everyone “has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
The Windhoek Declaration called to establish, maintain and foster an independent, pluralistic and free press. It emphasized the importance of a free press for developing and maintaining democracy in a nation, and for economic development. World Press Freedom Day is celebrated annually on May 3, the date on which the Windhoek Declaration was adopted.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002