https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjbu4o76dN8
Two journalists and three Tana River County officials are nursing serious injuries in hospital following a beating by General Service Unit (GSU) officers at a government ranch.
The journalists were pursuing a story on the fate of some 200 head of cattle being detained by the officers at Galana Agricultural Development Corporation ranch over alleged trespass.
The ranch is located at Kulalu on the border of Kilifi and Tana River counties.
The team could have suffered a worse fate had the officers’ commander not intervened in time to stop the beating on Saturday.
“You are lucky to be alive. We would have killed you. You have come here to put us into trouble,’’ Mr Nehemiah Okwembah of the Nationrecalls hearing one angry officers say as they retreated following the intervention by their boss.
The other victims were Citizen TV’s Reuben Ogachi, Mr Abaroba Barisa the political adviser to Tana River Governor Hussein Dado; Mr Koshe Elema, a driver and Communications Officer Ali Wario.
The GSU officers also damaged the journalists’ television cameras.
The team visited the ranch after locals complained of harassment and beatings by the officers, with some accusing the GSU men of demanding Sh500 for every animal before releasing them to the owners.
Governor Dado and his Kilifi counterpart Amason Kingi condemned the attack and demanded disciplinary action against the officers.
Mr Kingi said local leaders would want to know the motive of the attack and at whose behest the GSU men were acting.
“Farmers living around there and herders from the other side (Tana River) are living in fear of those GSU men.
“That is why we want to unravel the mystery that is this project which, instead of being a blessing to the community, has become a curse,’’ Mr Kingi said from Kilifi.
VISIT RANCH
He said he would visit the ranch next week to establish what was going on there.
The Editors’ Guild and the Kenya Correspondents Association (KCA) termed the attack unwarranted and said the officers must be brought to book.
“We appeal to the police leadership to reorient themselves and their rank and file with the times and realise that the primitive behaviour exhibited by its GSU unit in Galana has no place in our increasingly civilised environment,’’ said the Editors Guild Chairman Linus Kakai.
He asked Cabinet Secretary for ICT Fred Matiang’i to change the increasingly intense anti-media tone in government which may well have informed the attitude displayed by the GSU in Galana.
KCA chairman Oloo Janak expressed concern over rising cases of attacks on journalists by security officers across the country.
“It is unacceptable and an act of impunity for security officers to deliberately attack unarmed journalists doing their legitimate duty to inform the world about what evidently was another violation of the rights of Kenyans,” Mr Janak said in a statement.
According to Mr Okwemba, the officers pounced on them as they alighted from their vehicle and started beating them with batons and gun-butts as others shot in the air for about 15 minutes and only stopped when their commander intervened.
