**Updates IFEX alerts of 14 and 13 March 2000** (RSF/IFEX) – In a 15 March 2000 letter to Attorney General Amos Wako, RSF called for the release of Sam Aola, a correspondent with the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency in Mombasa, eastern Kenya, and a journalist with the private daily “The People”. RSF reminded him […]
**Updates IFEX alerts of 14 and 13 March 2000**
(RSF/IFEX) – In a 15 March 2000 letter to Attorney General Amos Wako, RSF called for the release of Sam Aola, a correspondent with the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency in Mombasa, eastern Kenya, and a journalist with the private daily “The People”. RSF reminded him that international human rights organisations believe that detention for press offences is out of proportion to the harm suffered by the victims. In a document dated 14 July 1992, the United Nations Commission of Human Rights stressed that “detention as punishment for the expression of an opinion is one of the most reprehensible means to enjoin silence, and as such constitutes a serious violation of human rights”. RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard added: “That is why nowadays no democratic state passes prison sentences in cases involving the media.”
According to a statement issued by AFP, Aola was arrested on 15 March in Mombasa. He was due to appear in court on 16 March. He has been charged with putting out “an alarmist report”. On 9 March, AFP had reported a statement by a high-ranking Mombasa police officer that about 4.8 tons of hashish had disappeared from a warehouse under police guard in January. Police spokesman Peter Kimanthy denied the report. On 13 March, Simbu Kusimba, head of “The People”‘s Mombasa desk, was arrested and held for several hours for publishing the same information.
RSF also recalled that on 15 February, Johann Wandetto, a journalist with “The People”, was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment. The journalist was charged with publishing “an alarmist report” in the 6 March 1999 edition of the newspaper. The story claimed that elite presidential guards had been ambushed and disarmed by militia in the Kamatira area of West Pokot. Wandetto was finally released a week later (see IFEX alerts of 25 and 16 February 2000).
