Past The Vanguard.

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Past The Vanguard

Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.
~Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship

 

Journalists Protesting Against The Draconian Bill.[photo by standard]

I am writing this while being very aghast at what is happening to our beloved country, Kenya. Rreason being , this story about our Honorable Members of Parliament passing the media bill hurriedly and in such a rush , with barely the required quorum present in Parliament. Well word on the street is , that they did this as some form of payback to our journalist’s ,for their consistent bashing of their (M.P’s) intention to remain eternally untaxed. They (M.P’s) want to remain untaxed at the expense of the common mwananchi.


In essence they want to remain in that exclusive cabal of “wenye inchi”, I.e. owners of the Republic ,while the poor man in Busia, Karachuonyo and Wundanyi toils donkey -like in an effort to buy some flour (Unga) the price of which has tripled in the past twelve months, for his Two wives and eleven kids. This is patently immoral to say the least, for them to divert attention from their tax dodging agenda by instead putting pressure, by blackmailing the fourth estate to toe their draconian line by sponsoring this bill. We must resist this attempt to sneak back repression and suppression of press freedom through the back door of this flawed and hurried legislation via parliament.

“So Mr. President Show leadership by leading from the front , Do not assent to this bill.”

We call on all patriots to resist these attempts with all the fiber of their Being. Memories of the raid on the Standard Group’s offices and printing press raid are still to vivid and fresh in our minds, for us to allow this this recur. Considering the fact that, the issue of some Mamluks in the form of the “Artur” Twins has never been resolved to date. We don’t want the floodgates to be opened so that all and sundry , who have real ,or perceived beef with the scribes, using this law to curtail press and media freedom by gagging and persecuting the messengers under a fundamentally flawed piece of legistlation.

My humble submission is that since we are but a fledgling democracy, we need to have a free press so that we can keep our democracy vibrant and nurture and grow it to the benefit of all citizens of this Great republic of Kenya. So Mr President Show leadership by leading from the front ,Do not assent to this bill. For if you do , you would have by one fell swoop taken us back to 1990 or worse still 1952. We are counting on you Sir.