No more alternatives
By David Karanja Posted Apr 1 2004
A vendor sells newspapers in Nairobi before the government's crackdown.
The Kenyan government has launched a crackdown on what it describes as the “gutter press.” On Jan. 10, police made a countrywide swoop on newspaper vendors, confiscating from vendors thousands of copies of Kenya Confidential, Weekly Citizen, Wembe and News Post. They raided the printing press of The Independent, a weekly Kenyan newspaper, and took 15,000 copies that were still being printed. News Post publisher Ndirangu Kari-uki was arrested but later released. Some vendors were charged in court for selling illegal publications.
These newspapers are part of the alternative press, which sprang up in the late 1990s. They have taken a firm foothold and now enjoy a wide readership. They specialize in publishing mostly unsubstantiated scandalous re-ports on prominent personalities in government. Printed on cheap paper, the eight-page publications disclose neither their physical address nor the authors of their stories.
The government pas-sed a new media law in May 2002 that was aimed at driving them out of business. Under the law, a newspaper or magazine publisher is required to pay to the Registrar of Societies a bond of one million shillings (US$13,000). The old law required only ten thousand shillings ($130). A publisher is also required to submit to authorities a copy of the publication before it goes on sale. The penalty for noncompliance is a fine of $13,000 or a three-year jail term or both. Distributors and vendors who sell a publication which has not complied with the law can be fined twenty thousand shillings ($260) or face a jail term of six months.
After the law was widely criticized as a threat to media freedom, the government backed down from using it to weed out the alternative press. But last December, the government's patience ran out after some of them published reports claiming that prominent members of the government were suffering from AIDS. They also published stories that implied that the president's wife had a love affair with the president's private secretary. Furious members of parliament asked the government to take action on the publications to stop them from defaming them with impunity. After the outcry, Attorney General Amos Wako announced that the newspapers were operating illegally and asked their publishers to stop publishing them, or risk prosecution. He also warned that vendors found selling them would be arrested.
The Jan. 10 swoop was ordered by Information Minister Raphael Tuju, who said his ministry would eliminate all illegal publications. But publishers of the newspapers said they had complied with the law. Mburu Mucoki, publisher and editor of The Independent, showed journalists his newspaper's registration certificate.
The mainstream media with whom the alternative press competes for readership has opposed the government action. Their umbrella body, The Media Owners Association (MOA), said that instead of preventing their sale, the government should apply the media law to weed out those who engage in unethical journalism.
“Preventing the sale of newspapers does not augur well for media freedom,” says MOA Chairman Wilfred Kiboro, who is also the chief executive officer of the biggest newspaper in the country, The Daily Nation.
The Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ), whose Secretary General Ezekiel Mutua condemned the crackdown as primitive, has stepped in to diffuse the crisis. The union has signed a memorandum of understanding with publishers of the targeted newspapers, which binds them to operate within the code of conduct for journalists. Under the agreement, the publishers will have to submit a copy of each issue to KUJ for standards rating. The union will help the alternative press to come up with sound editorial policies that respect individual privacy and recognize limits to freedom of expression.
“This code commits them to professionalism, which in essence means fair, accurate and balanced reporting,” said Mutua after signing the pact.