Kenya
Kenyan editor sentenced to six months prison

afrol News, 14 August - The French media watchdog Reporters sans frontières (RSF) today protested against the six-month prison sentence imposed on 9 August on journalist and Member of Parliament Njehu Gatabaki, editor of the magazine 'Finance'. The group says Gatabaki is being "harassed by the President."

Njehu Gatabaki was convicted of publishing a "false and alarming report" in December 1997 that accused President Daniel Arap Moi of having instigated ethnic bloodshed in Molo shortly before the 1992 elections, in which some 1,500 people died. 

- This journalist has been the target of veritable harassment by the President, and his imprisonment, soon after the adoption of a new law on the press, bodes ill for the future of press freedom in Kenya," RSF Secretary-general Robert Ménard said in a letter to President Moi.

The letter from Reporters sans frontières was also calling for Gatabaki's "immediate release and the withdrawal of all the charges against him." 

The 1997 article, entitled "Moi ordered Molo massacre", alleged that President Moi gave the orders for members of his own ethnic group, the Kalenjin, to attack members of the Kikuyu community in the Molo area resulting in clashes in which many Kikuyu died. This version of the 1992 election violence has later been internationally accepted as probable.

The court however found the article "liable to alarm the population and threaten civil peace." The judge said she was imposing an exemplary sentence because its was Gatabaki's job, as an MP, to make the laws, not break them. 

Gatabaki, who still stands by the article, has 14 days to appeal, RSF reports. Nonetheless, he has already been jailed in the Kamiti high security prison. He was originally detained on 4 December 1997 but was released on bail pending trial, originally scheduled for February 1998. 

- The sluggishness of the Kenyan judicial system seem to have been responsible for the trial delays, RSF says. "The magazine 'Finance' is one of the few forums of expression for opposition politicians in Kenya."

According to RSF's 2002 annual report, the situation of the press in Kenya was noted by many problems. Once again, in 2001 some 20 journalists had benn arrested or assaulted in Kenya. "The authorities invoked the bad quality of the 'gutter press', while journalists emphasised the president's lack of tolerance," RSF noted.

Sources: Based on RSF and afrol archives

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