The recent demonstrations and agitation by the youth calling out what they termed shortcomings in the current government, including high level corruption and poor leadership, saw a number of lives lost and properties worth hundreds of millions destroyed.
Though it would be pointless to dwell on statistics on the number of those who were killed and injured, the painful truth is that scores of lives were lost, some innocent citizens caught in the crossfire.
This cannot in any way be celebrated as a welcome development but it must serve as a pointer to the government that the chickens have come home to roost and it’s high time we do some soul searching to find out where the rains began to beat us.
Among those who found themselves at the receiving end were journalists armed with their tools of trade, ready to tell the world the story as it unfolded.
Journalism can be a very risky profession and those who were hurt while covering the demonstrations deserve to be feted as heroes who risked life and limb to bring us those enduring images on both print and electronic outlets.
However it was disheartening to see armed security officers assaulting and shooting at journalists who were armed only with notebooks, cameras and microphones, despite donning press jackets.
This smacks of sheer sadism and irresponsibility on the part of the involved officers and calls for thorough investigations on the matter given that the reporters posed no security threat while in the line of duty.
Probably the security officers involved were jittery about being cast in bad light assaulting and shooting protesters, but that does not warrant attacking the messengers whose only work is to tell the unfiltered truth as it occurred.
That is the reality the government and its security apparatus must sober up to.
Those of us who began developing an interest in journalism during the dark days of Moi government remember how media houses were being hounded by government operatives especially the dreaded Special Branch.
Those journalists who began practising in the current digital era may not know how some journalists were plucked away when sending stories by reverse call in the streets and taken for questioning.
There were publications whose editors and publishers were always under government radar through the dreaded SB, and most were arrested and tortured.
Sometimes one had to look left and right before picking such publications in the streets, which we read under the table for fear of being arrested reading “seditious materials”.
That is a nightmare that our media cannot sit back and allow to creep back. With the wider democratic space that took a lot of sacrifice to achieve, the media should flex its muscles and say in no uncertain terms that it cannot be gagged or intimidated.
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By Pascal Mwandambo
The writer is a freelance journalist and blogger.
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