Kenya unapologetic over media raid

NAIROBI – Kenya has defended last week’s unprecedented police raid on a major media group which brought a torrent of accusations from at home and abroad that President Mwai Kibaki’s government was behaving like a dictatorship.

“We have actually committed no crime,” Internal Security Minister John Michuki told a news conference late on Friday. “The police are within the law.”In the most aggressive assault on media since Kenya’s independence in 1963, at least 30 elite police and paramilitary commandos armed with AK-47s stormed the offices of the Standard Group’s TV station and newspaper in the early hours of Thursday.Amid a national uproar over the incident, Kenyan police justified their actions on allegations that Standard journalists were taking bribes to write false stories and that there was a plot to incite ethnic hatred.During the raids on Kenyan Television Network (KTN) and the Standard newspaper, police seized transmission equipment and computers.”The material contains serious matters detrimental to the security of this country,” Michuki claimed.The Standard group has ridiculed the accusations over bribery and threats to security, and plans to sue for damages.Condemnation of Kenya’s actions has poured in.”Such acts of thuggery have no place in an open society and we call on the government of Kenya to cease its intimidation,” said US State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli.Fallout from the raid has put more pressure on Kibaki, who was already reeling from graft scandals and an embarrassing defeat in a constitutional referendum at the end of last year.- Nampa-Reuters”The police are within the law.”In the most aggressive assault on media since Kenya’s independence in 1963, at least 30 elite police and paramilitary commandos armed with AK-47s stormed the offices of the Standard Group’s TV station and newspaper in the early hours of Thursday.Amid a national uproar over the incident, Kenyan police justified their actions on allegations that Standard journalists were taking bribes to write false stories and that there was a plot to incite ethnic hatred.During the raids on Kenyan Television Network (KTN) and the Standard newspaper, police seized transmission equipment and computers.”The material contains serious matters detrimental to the security of this country,” Michuki claimed.The Standard group has ridiculed the accusations over bribery and threats to security, and plans to sue for damages.Condemnation of Kenya’s actions has poured in.”Such acts of thuggery have no place in an open society and we call on the government of Kenya to cease its intimidation,” said US State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli.Fallout from the raid has put more pressure on Kibaki, who was already reeling from graft scandals and an embarrassing defeat in a constitutional referendum at the end of last year.- Nampa-Reuters