 Why 254? Imagine. As we mark the world press freedom day, journalist in Kenya continue to live in fear of assassination and threats coming from both state and non-state actors in the line of Joti. This year alone, two journalists have been assassinated in a span of a month. The gruesome murder of Jennifer Mombua, a former Kenya news agency bureau chief and Betty Barrasa a senior video editor and television producer working for the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, paints a grim picture of the state of journalism in Kenya. Our work as human rights defenders are basically considered journalists as human rights defenders also. So in one or another in our work we interact with journalists and we have had cases whereby they report threats, intimidation by virtue of their work. So we normally try to help come for their solidarity, report their cases and then basically be there for them. So our work basically we have touched on issues of threats facing journalists but then again in our country also we have seen a number of journalists have been actually killed in the line of work. Maybe they report issues of corruption in that case they are killing the line of duty. Last year on the world press freedom day a group of gangs will lead and killed Mohamed Marijan who worked for Pamodzai Femboz the stab to death at 5 a.m. while heading to work in the morning. Organized crime where a think tank of experts drone from the academia, journalism, human rights defenders, diplomats and our work is basically to fight the illegal crime markets through coming up with account market strategies. So we do this through analyzing the trends in the illicit markets and part of our product is what we call the assassination witness where we document and talk about the people who have either disappeared without a trace or they've been assassinated by state agents of concern is Kenya where we've seen a lot of killings of journalists which are mostly state perpetrator where we have examples of people like Kituwi who was murdered as he was doing an investigation about a murder linked to the ICC cases and we also have people like Monohe who also was found dead in his house. The main concern is the increasing in numbers instead of reducing. This year alone we witnessed two murders of journalists, one who was supposed to be a state witness, Miss Jennifer and she was due to appear in court and talk about a corruption scandal linked to the National Land Commission, linked to key politicians in the former government. Why this is worrying is because we feel like it has forced so many people to shrink, it has forced a lot of journalists to either abandon the duties. The 2021 world press freedom index ranks Kenya 102nd out of 180 with a score of 33.65 in press freedom. The position marks a drop of six spots compared to the country's previous ranking in 2018. This is especially a worrying trend with backlashes from even the highest office in the country, ravishing of the media. All is not lost however. The move has led to the entrance of new form of media and penetration of affordable internet has given rise to robust digital media platforms. We talked to the founder of Nakuru TV and online TV station Besti Nakuru and this is what he had to say. Remember in some time in 2017 the head of state saying that newspaper adjusts for up in mid. We see that that is in a way attack on journalism as a profession. With the general elections set for 2022 and arranging pandemic, media stakeholders have already started experiencing threats and harassment by state and non-state actors especially in the counties. Yet the shrinking media space has forced many journalists and media houses into self-censorship in fear of the state. You also see some kind of attempts to interfere with what we are doing especially in the manner especially when one any actor within that space is doing something that the authorities or the powers that be are not happy with and we have seen certain attacks directed to players within the digital spaces. With respect to journalists in the last we would say two years we've had a journalist just recently we had a journalist who was attacked by the police on his way home during the corona period. You want to say past few hours and we just made a conclusion that is merely a misunderstanding of how the police should execute the orders that were given by the president matters of the past few hours. The relationship between the media and the government hasn't been of help with the corona restrictions and the heightened political instability, media organizations have come under attack from the government with threats, summons and even physical attacks. For instance the most recent case a few weeks to the world press freedom day on April 25 2021. Seven journalists were arrested and beaten by the police officers while covering the Tana Adi River Development Authority demolitions in Bere Ambu. Another incident is showing the unprofessionalism of Kenya police service on December 2020. Simon Ben from the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation KBC based in Nakuru was ill-treated and harassed by police officers. Simon was filming a scaffold between a motorist and traffic police officers. When the police attacked the motorist and soon they turned their head on Simon who was recording the ordeal. My name is Caroline Chebet. I'm an environmental investigative reporter based in Nakuru Kenya. I have been working on investigative stories for almost I think this is my third year doing investigative work. The challenges mostly include threats while doing this investigative stories. It is usually not very easy to tell stories that incorporate crime in its illicit flow of resources or money. There are usually people who are out there trying to come in between and because it's always that fear of exposure. So mostly they try to threaten journalists. Mostly these journalists face threats from messages. They call people, they can warn you via text messages, they can warn you via through calls but they usually don't reveal their contacts. You just get a text that you are not supposed to don't kindly don't continue venturing into that report as much as it takes a lot of courage to venture into investigative journalism. At some point you really feel like no story is worth your life as much as there is so much we really have to tell but then there is so much threats these journalists are facing. I'm called Joseph Omondi. I'm the executive director of an NGO called Meet Rift Human Rights Network registered as Meet Rift Human Rights based here in Nakuru but we work in Nairobi, Nakuru, Baringo, Kisumo and Uganda. What I will say is that once since the promulgation of the constitution I see this a lot of robustness in the media but we are also seeing a situation whereby the state actors are still clawing back on some of the gains that we got in the constitution and in my observation is that still the state actors are not ready to share information to the media so that the media can relate to the larger population because of them and it. The other thing that I've observed is that this is still resistance in terms of state agencies embracing the spirit of access to information because the media should be given the information so that as I've said to relate the bigger larger population because that promotes also the good governance that is captured in Atko 3, Atko 10 of the constitution about principles of governance and national values so there is still some resistance from some quarters not to give the media the leeway and the freedom and the platform to work the way it was envisioned in the constitution. We want to be the frontliners when it comes to fighting for the rights of artists. The journalists, they risk a lot when they go out there to report either from the threats the intimidation and sometimes you will even find that they would be dead because we've seen I don't think it's a new phenomenon in Kenya we've seen journalists being killed it's not it's an open secret so some of them is probably because of the story they have done some are threatened and it's unfortunate that some some ended and I don't know in this country the cases they take so much time that you don't get to the conclusion of the matter as who really killed that journalist or who or for what reason they did that and this makes makes it very wrong because the family the country everybody it serves another to know why a journalist had to lose their life just because of of relaying maybe information to the public and it costed them their life it's such it's unfortunate one is the second december 2020 angue fm a radio station in voeya was attacked by police officers a clear act of intimidation by the police for the journalist covering a student's riots that was taking place hours after the interview the students according to the media council of kenya they have on several occasions brought to the attention of the police inspector general mr hilary mochambayi the many pending cases of attacks against journalists reported in several police stations across the country whose investigations have either stalled or have never taken off the prosecution of a suspected murder of a journalist in kenya remain wanting frances nyariyan kituye cases are unresolved which add to the shoking unesco statistics which states that only one out of ten cases are resolved a documented case is one of the suspects linked to the murder of ci a journalist erico low a star newspaper journalist who was sentenced to 35 years in jail after he was found guilty in april 2021 media freedom is a constitutional right provided for and the article 34 of the 2010 constitution and should be protected by all led by low enforcement agencies whom recently were aggrieved by an exposé aired by citizen tv the editorial leadership of royal media services was issued with someone's by the director of criminal investigations george kinoti over the exposé dated 18 april 2021 with the title sila mitani and gans galo brukaston citizen tv somoni journalist above your work or causing them to reveal their sources is the clear violation of press freedom and the constitution the role of civil society remains paramount in insuring that the number of journalists killed or disappeared without a trace is eliminated whereas great states have been made to ensure that journalists operate freely and fairly much more needs to be needs to be done with all said in dan what remains cardinal and the kralion call is the words of walter krunkite who said freedom of the press is not just important to democracy it is democracy