Cops Beat Up 3 Journalists Covering High School Function

Cops Beat Up 3 Journalists Covering High School Function

Cops Beat Up 3 Journalists Covering High School Function

When three journalists attempted to cover the entrance of a new secondary school principal in Kitui County, they were allegedly attacked by police and taken into custody.On Thursday, February 8, the journalists showed up at Mutonguni Boys High School after receiving a public tip-off to cover a planned protest by parents who had promised to march in the event that the new principal took over.

“The parents of the Mutonguni Boys had threatened to stage a protest if the new principal took over the school. After the attack, one of the journalists said, “We arrived and discovered the gate had been closed and the teacher (principal) had already been sneaked in.”But when they got to the place, they discovered police there, and they gave everyone the order to leave right away.

One journalist took the brunt of their rage when they saw that several were still refusing to comply with the direct instruction. He was severely battered and his hands were covered in blood. Others had wounds of differing degrees of severity. After thereafter, a few of the journalists were reportedly arrested at a local police station after being forced into a police van.

“They led us to the police station in Ndolo. I was scheduled to be there. One of the journalists said, “They wanted to charge me with causing a disturbance.”In the meantime, the area was heavily secured by security, and the school principal had already arrived.

The group of parents who expressed concern about a concerning pattern of subpar performances and threatened to demonstrate was also excluded from the area.The incident comes after a Standard Media journalist said that Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) officers had attacked her on February 1 when she was traveling along the Kitale-Kapenguria route.

The journalist and the officials were shown fighting in a video that was posted on their social media page, with the official threatening to physically harm the journalist.The EACC released a statement on February 2 in response to the report, stating unequivocally that no journalist had been harmed.

“The person refused to provide any information about himself, just stating that he was a journalist. To be clear, no EACC officer has ever assaulted someone, and incidents of this nature are not common at EACC,” the organization said.