There are State elements that pose mortal danger to media

We newspaper editors, especially those who practise in the Third World, have the survival instincts of a mongoose.

When we crawl out of the safety of our holes into the sunlight and stand on our tails, our sharp eyes will pick out the eagle 100 metres in the sky, motionlessly riding the updrafts, waiting to swoop.

And our sharp noses will catch the whiff of poison from the cobra’s mouth a mile away.

MENYA ARREST
We survive because we see danger from afar.

There are elements within the government that present a clear, present and mortal danger for the media.

The persecution of our reporter, Walter Menya, is not different from others we have suffered in the past.

When Chris Murungaru was newly appointed as minister for Internal Security in 2003, a very cheeky reporter, Mr Kamau Ngotho, fished out his history, which the minister would rather not have had transacted in the public.

VIOLATION

It took a conspiracy in and out of government to keep him out of jail.

But the vacuous viciousness with which Menya was set up and arrested, the impunity with which he was intimidated, his person threatened, his property confiscated, his home turned upside down without court orders, his telephone and, therefore, private communication violated, this was a level of lawlessness that can only be achieved by organs of the State, which do not know that a government, itself a creature of the law, delegitimises itself by breaking the law.

On Sunday, we woke up to reports from a Jubilee airhead that a Nation reporter had been arrested for extorting money and writing a fake story.

BLOGGER

Looking at the photos that were being spread — during the arrest, in the vehicle to the police station and at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations on Kiambu Road, Nairobi — it was obvious that a member of the arresting team was taking pictures and feeding the blogger.

The police lied — yes, lied — to us about the whereabouts of Menya the whole of Sunday.

The Nation team went from police station to police station, in vain.

We finally caught up with him at the DCI headquarters late on Sunday night and we did so by trading favours deep into the dark caverns of the national security system.
SAFETY FIRST
Anger and professional outrage seethed in my belly but I was outwardly calm and friendly as we roasted meat in the middle of the night to feed Menya and his captors, bought water and arranged for warm clothes to be delivered.

Having been here many times, we know that liberty is not the first thing on our minds when one of us is arrested: Protect life (feed, keep warm in the cell), protect dignity (ensure there is no physical abuse, the person, his home and equipment are protected) and thirdly, fight for liberty.

Justice is a distant but implacable fourth.

LEAKED DOCUMENTS

Kennedy Kiprotich Koros, an intern at the NGOs Coordination Board, lured our colleague to the slaughter.

He did so by leaking genuine documents linking senior government officials in the illegal activity of meddling in politics.

What bothered me was why Koros was targeting the Nation. And why Menya?

The only rational explanation is that Koros was initially not setting up Menya, at all.

Menya was most likely a victim of a factional fight within Jubilee.

HOUSE RAIDED

In my theory, Koros, representing one faction, was leaking documents to embarrass a rival faction.

The rival faction got wind of it and being powerful, twisted his arm and got him to set up Menya in a desperate attempt to discredit his story and frighten him off.

And this explains, in my mind, why the police took the exceptionally brave risk of turning his house upside down without a court order, confiscated his laptop and phone, opening themselves to epic litigation, in an attempt to recover those documents.

There was even (brave) talk of raiding the Nation Centre to search his work station.

MALICE

I have no ill-will against the officers who violated our constitutionally protected rights — we will enforce those rights in the right forum — what aches me is the uselessness of it all.

They brutalised a man and his family, they wasted our time and caused us anxiety, but what did they achieve, other than destroying the image of the regime they serve?

The police have had Menya’s phone and laptop for a week now.

The contents of those devices are potentially contaminated.

Further, tapes alleged to be of conversations between Menya and Koros were posted on the blog of a man whose malignant purpose in life is to destroy us as individuals, as a company and as an institution who burst into infamy through heartless exploitation of nudity, public misconduct (as in Muliro Gardens) and an apparent single-minded determination to destroy every respected woman journalist in our country.

SURVIVAL

What decision can an editor take on the basis of material proffered by such a prurient, evil presence?

And if the regime wished to discredit Menya so that we can sack him, do we jump into that lake?

So the mongoose must survive. Let me end with a warning: The mongoose has sharp teeth.

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