In 2006 the Kenyan police violently raided the offices and printing press of the Standard Group media organisation. What was the government afraid of seeing reported? Dominic Burbidge explores a revealing case.

A Kenyan reads a burnt copy of the Standard newspaper at the printing press in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, March 2, 2006. Masked gunmen raided Kenya's second biggest media group, forcing its television station off the air and burning copies of its newspaper at a printing press. (REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya)

The case

In March 2006, masked men armed with AK-47s broke into the offices and printing press of the Standard Group in Nairobi, Kenya, beating journalists, taking the television station off air and setting fire to thousands of copies of the media group’s newspaper. Although the midnight raid appeared initially to have been organised by criminals, the kidnapped journalists were deposited in police stations and the police took responsibility, justifying their operation by claiming journalists were receiving payments for writing articles that incited ethnic hatred. The government announced it had acted directly against media it deemed a threat to national security. The Internal Security Minister John Michuki said, “If you rattle a snake, you must be prepared to be bitten by it.”

But what snake did the Standard Group rattle? One freelance reporter arrested during the raid explained how the prisoners were questioned over “who owned the Standard” and “how to dismantle” the Kenya Television Network and Standard Group’s newspaper printing press. Following the raid, three journalists were charged for publishing alarming statements regarding President Mwai Kibaki but later released on bail, with the charges eventually dropped in September of the same year.

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