Press freedom: Journalists working in increasingly intolerant conditions.Drive Hot News

 Citizen TV cameraman Reuben Ogachi recuperating at Aga Khan Hospital in Mombasa after an attack by GSU officers in Tana River. As the World Press Freedom Day is marked, it has emerged that journalists are still working in a difficult environment. PHOTO

Even as the world marks World Press Freedom Day, it has emerged that journalists are operating in an environment that is becoming increasingly intolerant.

Governments across Africa have heightened efforts of reigning in the media and limiting free speech.

In East Africa alone, around 25 journalists have been interrogated by the police and security agencies.

On April 23, 2015, the Director of Criminal Investigations, Ndegwa Muhoro’s office wrote to the Nation Media Group (NMG) to compel two of its editors to appear for questioning, in a letter signed by Mr Joseph Ngisa.

The two were summoned over the publication of two articles in the Daily Nation on April 21 and April 22, indicating involving an intelligence officer.

K24 reporters were also summoned by the DCI for questioning over the coverage of the recent Garissa massacres.

In Eldoret, John Kituyi, editor and publisher of the Mirror was murdered by unknown assailants.

Nehemiah Okwemba of NTV and Reuben Ogacha of Citizen TV were attacked by the General Service Unit (GSU) officers while reporting on a story in Galana Kulalu Ranch in Tana River County.

Since January 2015, at least 20 newspapers have had editions of their publications confiscated on 45 different occasions by the country’s National Intelligence and Security Service.

In January 24, the leading regional newspaper, the East African was been banned from circulation in Tanzania, 20 years after it was launched to cover the region for 'circulating in the country without being properly registered, contrary to section 6 of the Newspaper Act number 3 of 1976’.