Kenya : Magazine editor sentenced to six months in prison

Reporters Without Borders today protested against the six-month
prison sentence imposed on 9 August on journalist and Member of
Parliament Njehu Gatabaki, editor of the magazine Finance. He was
convicted of publishing a "false and alarming report" in December
1997 that accused President Daniel Arap Moi of having instigated
ethnic bloodshed in Molo shortly before the1992 elections in which
some 1,500 people died.

"This journalist has been the target of veritable harassment by the
President, and his imprisonment, soon after the adoption of a new law
on the press, bodes ill for the future of press freedom in Kenya",
Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said in a
letter to President Moi calling for Gatabaki's immediate release and
the withdrawal of all the charges against him.

The 1997 article, entitled "Moi ordered Molo massacre", alleged that
President Moi gave the orders for members of his own ethnic group,
the Kalenjin, to attack members of the Kikuyu community in the Molo
area resulting in clashes in which many Kikuyu died. The court found
the article liable to alarm the population and threaten civil peace.
The judge said she was imposing an exemplary sentence because its was
Gatabaki's job, as an MP, to make the laws, not break them.

Gatabaki, who stands by the article, has 14 days to appeal.
Nonetheless, he has already been jailed in the Kamiti high security
prison. He was originally detained on 4 December 1997 but was
released on bail pending trial, originally scheduled for February
1998. The sluggishness of the Kenyan judicial system seem to have
been responsible for the trial delays. The magazine Finance is one of
the few forums of expression for opposition politicians in Kenya.