Kenyan police raid media group

NAIROBI – Heavily-armed Kenyan police stormed the headquarters of the country’s second biggest media group early yesterday, shutting down its television station and smashing its printing press, following a report President Mwai Kibaki held secret talks with a political opponent, employees said.

Dozens of balaclava-clad officers carrying AK-47 assault rifles raided the Standard Group’s offices shortly after midnight, seizing computers and transmission equipment for the independent Kenya Television Network (KTN), they said. Police then smashed the printing press and set light to thousands of freshly-published copies of yesterday’s edition of the 104-year-old The Standard.The raid, the first-ever attack on a mainstream media outlet since independence from Britain in 1963, sparked widespread condemnation and calls for Kibaki’s resignation.The government said initially it was not aware of the attack and pledged the investigate.”I am trying to find out what has happened and I will get back to the media when I do …I do not know who is responsible for this as I said I have just seen it on NTV …I really cannot say anything until I find out,” Information Minister Mutahi Kagwe said in live interview on the independent television station NTV.During the raid, which followed the arrest of three Standard Group journalists on Tuesday, police briefly detained four KTN employees and confiscated recorded tapes and mobile telephones, staffers said.The police were looking for news anchor Njoroge Mwaura, who read on air a scathing editorial on press freedom shortly before the raid, but he had already left the building.The Kenya Union of Journalists urged media houses to boycott positive news on Kibaki’s regime for the next two weeks.- Nampa-AFPPolice then smashed the printing press and set light to thousands of freshly-published copies of yesterday’s edition of the 104-year-old The Standard.The raid, the first-ever attack on a mainstream media outlet since independence from Britain in 1963, sparked widespread condemnation and calls for Kibaki’s resignation.The government said initially it was not aware of the attack and pledged the investigate.”I am trying to find out what has happened and I will get back to the media when I do …I do not know who is responsible for this as I said I have just seen it on NTV …I really cannot say anything until I find out,” Information Minister Mutahi Kagwe said in live interview on the independent television station NTV.During the raid, which followed the arrest of three Standard Group journalists on Tuesday, police briefly detained four KTN employees and confiscated recorded tapes and mobile telephones, staffers said.The police were looking for news anchor Njoroge Mwaura, who read on air a scathing editorial on press freedom shortly before the raid, but he had already left the building.The Kenya Union of Journalists urged media houses to boycott positive news on Kibaki’s regime for the next two weeks.- Nampa-AFP