Kenya

2014

  
Journalists who fled to Nairobi over security fears perform a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony in one of the cramped apartments they share. (CPJ/Nicole Schilit)

Mission Journal: Ethiopian journalists must choose between being locked up or locked out

A sharp increase in the number of Ethiopian journalists fleeing into exile has been recorded by the Committee to Protect Journalists in the past 12 months. More than 30–twice the number of exiles CPJ documented in 2012 and 2013 combined–were forced to leave after the government began a campaign of arrests. In October, Nicole Schilit…

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Police arrest one of the protesters who gathered in Nairobi on December 18 to oppose the security bill. (AFP/Simon Maina)

In Kenya, press curbed as government seeks to fight terrorism

The Kenyan press is being caught in the crossfire as authorities seek to strengthen defenses against terrorists. On December 19, Kenya’s president signed into law a security bill that has the power to stop the press covering terror attacks. The government has also recently criticized the media over allegations that special units are carrying out…

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Justus Ochieng at the Central Police Station in Kisumu. The journalist has been threatened and harassed in recent weeks. (The Star)

Kenyan journalist covering police detained, harassed

Nairobi, November 4, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Kenyan police to stop harassing and threatening a journalist in Kisumu city, western Kenya. Last month, police threatened and briefly detained Justus Ochieng, a reporter for the privately owned daily The Star, in connection with a story he wrote that alleged criminal activity by police…

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Journalists take copies of the Kenyan security manual. (Zoe Mwende)

Kenyan journalists, CPJ launch new initiative to improve security

Today, the Committee to Protect Journalists in collaboration with local media organizations launched a journalist security guide and protocol designed specifically for the Kenyan press. The initiative stems from research conducted in 2013 by the same group of organizations, the Kenya Media Working Group, in light of acute and unique security challenges for the Kenyan…

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News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, May 2014

CPJ’s Brazil report spurs government meetings on press freedom CPJ board member María Teresa Ronderos and CPJ Senior Program Coordinator Carlos Lauría traveled to Brasilia this month to launch a new special report, “Halftime for the Brazilian press,” and met with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, as well as other high-level government officials. CPJ also presented…

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Kenyan journalist in hiding after receiving threats

A Kenyan journalist working for the privately owned daily The Star went into hiding on May 7, 2014, two days after she received threats, she told CPJ. Lydia Ngoolo said she was told via a text message to stop writing about “us.”

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Remembering Camille Lepage

“Not sure I can talk about my ‘career’ just yet–I’m still just getting started!” freelance photographer Camille Lepage told the photography site Petapixel in October 2013.Less than a year later, Lepage’s body was found in a car in the Central African Republic, according to news reports citing the French government. She had been traveling with fighters of…

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Somali families are boarded onto lorries from Eastleigh, Nairobi, and sent to one of two refugee camps. (Mohamed Adow)

Kenya must consider plight of refugee journalists

Today, CPJ partnered with Reporters Without Borders and Rory Peck Trust in a joint open letter calling on Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary of Interior, Joseph Ole Lenku, to provide clarity on the government’s refugee policy and to exempt journalists from forced relocation to the refugee camps. On March 25, Lenku ordered all urban refugees to relocate…

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CPJ urges free expression be part of post-2015 MDG agenda

Dear Ambassadors Kamau and Kőrösi: I am writing to you in your capacity as the co-chairmen of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. Your work and the recommendations of your group will help frame the discussion in the coming year as United Nations member states seek to agree a set of objectives to succeed the Millennium Development Goals beyond 2015. We at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) believe it is vital that your report to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon later this year include freedom of expression and access to information and independent media as part of the post-2015 agenda.

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Omwa Ombara left Kenya for the United States. (CPJ)

Forced to flee false perceptions, ICC, and Kenyan press

EDITOR’S NOTE: February 15, 2014 marked one year since Omwa Ombara arrived in the U.S. to seek political asylum after attempts on her life in Kenya between May and December 2012. She fled her native land after being contacted by International Criminal Court (ICC) investigators probing the violence that followed the Kenyan elections in 2007-2008,…

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2014