(NDIMA/IFEX) – An “East African Standard” photographer, Malachi Owino, together with other newsmen, was attacked by a suspected hired gang on 26 November 2000 in the lakeside town of Kisumu, in Nyanza Province, about 450 kilometres north-west of Nairobi. A meeting had been convened by the Initiative’s People’s Commission of Kenya (PCK), a body appointed […]
(NDIMA/IFEX) – An “East African Standard” photographer, Malachi Owino, together with other newsmen, was attacked by a suspected hired gang on 26 November 2000 in the lakeside town of Kisumu, in Nyanza Province, about 450 kilometres north-west of Nairobi.
A meeting had been convened by the Initiative’s People’s Commission of Kenya (PCK), a body appointed by churches and church leaders to spearhead a people-driven constitutional review in Kenya. The PCK was in Kisumu on the last leg of provincial meetings that the group has been holding to collect views from members of the public. Owino was beaten with clubs and other crude weapons. He sustained a cut on his head and was whipped on the back as he struggled to save his camera from two youths who seized it from him and threw it on the ground, breaking it and exposing the film. The camera was valued at over Kenya shillings 50,000 (approx. US$642).
The rowdy thugs suspected to have been hired by an opposition party leader came to the meeting disguised as participants. Using crude weapons they had concealed in their clothes, they asked, “Where are these journalists?”
A Peugeot 504 stationwagon belonging to the state-owned Kenya News Agency had its windows broken. Several other vehicles, including one belonging to the National Christian Council of Kenya, were stoned and burnt.