Four journalists harassed, assaulted by police during Majengo protests

Right before they left, the team of four, Fridah Okachi (reporter), Dennis Onsongo (photojournalist), Wambui Kurema (cameraperson), and the driver, noticed a freelance journalist being harassed and started filming the incident. 

This is when a group of seven GSU officers, realising their actions had been captured, rushed to the vehicle shouting at the NMG crew to stop filming and immediately delete the footage. 

While this was happening, another Star newspaper photojournalist, Enos Teche, who was just a few metres from the NMG vehicle, was being prevented from taking photos of the happenings with a GSU officer blocking his path and another one menacingly raising a baton above his head shouting at him to leave the scene. 

Back at the NMG vehicle, the entire crew was shocked by the sudden assault with one of the officers managing to force open the co-driver door where Ms Kurema was seated.

He was immediately joined by another officer and together, began yanking at the NTV camera saying the captured footage must be deleted. 

“One of the officers said that he knows how to delete footage from cameras and that they would ensure we do not air that clip showing their harassment. I held firm onto my camera and one of them applied pressure on my wrists. It was too painful but I did not let go of the camera,” Ms Kurema narrated. 

In the melee, the camera’s viewfinder got completely damaged even as another officer stood in front of the car to prevent the crew from driving off. 

The NMG team said they would comply and said they would alight the vehicle and talk it out. Still, the two officers, keen on the deletion of the footage, continued pulling at the camera.

At this point, Mr Onsongo, took his still photo camera to capture the tussle after realising dialogue would not work. 

“That is when an officer came from behind me and slapped me in the face! I have covered several protests and demonstrations and never have I ever been attacked by officers. It is very unfortunate that such a thing has happened,” Mr Onsongo said.

Seeing the violent turn this confrontation was taking, Ms Kurema said she would delete the specific clip showing the harassment but not the entire footage captured earlier on during the riots.

“I had to comply and started deleting the footage. They ordered me to sit somewhere on the stairs and delete all the footage showing their harassment. It was a very traumatising experience that I would not wish on anyone. They were too loud, barking orders yet I was just doing my job,” Ms Kurema said. 

Speaking to the Nation on phone Wednesday, National Police Service (NPS) Spokesperson, Muchiri Nyaga condemned the attack on journalists and said they were following up on the matter and will issue a detailed report on the same.

“It is very absurd for an officer to attack a journalist. We always work together for the benefit of Kenyans. We will find out who the officers are and action will follow,” he said. 

A subsequent statement from Mr Nyaga’s office, later on, said that the NPS maintains a cordial relationship with the media and is committed to “safeguarding and promoting media freedom, as well as protecting journalists in Kenya, in line with the constitution and international standards”. 

“NPS wishes to reassure the public that firm and decisive action will be taken against any officer found to have engaged in misconduct,” he said. 

These officers’ actions are but a pointer to the increasingly difficult environment that Kenyan journalists find themselves in as they execute their work.  

During the Gen-Z protests last year, several journalists were victims of police excesses with one even being shot in the stomach with a teargas canister by a police officer at close range just outside Nation Centre.

On June 18, 2024, Sammy Kimatu, an NMG reporter was alongside another K24 journalist, roughed up, handcuffed, his notebook torn, pen and water bottle broken before being bundled into a police vehicle.

For hours, the duo was taken around the city centre at least 10 times, Mr Kimatu recalled, all along being escorted by a convoy of seven police vehicles as the officers taunted them for exposing their excesses.

“I remember one of the officers shouting that we are the stupid people highlighting their actions and the next thing, we were captured and taken around the city centre severally. We were eventually thrown into a lorry and taken to Central Police Station,” Mr Kimatu said.

So harsh was the treatment by the officers that Mr Kimatu fainted at the police station where upon recovering his consciousness, was taken to hospital by his colleagues who had come to secure his and that of the K24 journalists’ release. 

On the same day that Kimatu was arrested, several other journalists, including Joe Muhia and Iddi Ali Juma of AP, Standard Group video editor Justice Mwangi Macharia were arrested and released later on.

Mr Macharia sustained injuries after being thrown out of a moving police vehicle. NTV’s cameraperson Maureen Muthoni had to be hospitalised after being aimed at by a water cannon which threw her on the pavement. 

Following these incidents, the Media Council of Kenya condemned the arbitrary arrests and attacks on journalists by the police and expressed its displeasure at how the officers, instead of providing security to journalists, attacked and arrested them.

A month later, on July 16, 2024, the uniformed officers were at it again. While covering the anti-government protests in Nakuru City, Catherine Wanjeri, a reporter working with MediaMax Limited was shot by police officers along Kenyatta Avenue four times; three rubber bullets lodged in her body, one of them causing a serious injury. 

Recounting her ordeal at the Nakuru Annex Hospital after a successful surgery that saw doctors remove three rubber bullets from her thigh, Ms Wanjeri said that she, alongside other journalists, were being targeted by the police.