The New Vision

Kenyan directors here over KFM

Publication date: Monday, 15th August, 2005

INTERVENTION: Wilfred Kiboro and other Nation directors leave CPS after visiting Mwenda

By H. Ssempogo
& Cyprian Musoke
FOUR directors of the Nation Media Group, which owns Monitor Publications, are in the country to discuss the closure of KFM radio station.
The team, which includes the Chief Executive Officer, Wilfred Kiboro and the group’s Editorial Director, Wangethi Mwangi, arrived on Saturday.
In the company of the Monitor Publications managing director, Conrad Nkutu, yesterday the team visited KFM presenter Andrew Mwenda at Kampala Central Police Station where he is detained.
“How are you doing in your new home, Andrew?” Nkutu asked.
“Oh, I’m very fine, thank you. You see how I can now mobilise a whole army,” a smiling Mwenda said of the numbers that surged to shake his hand.
“I eat posho and beans, and I have made quite a number of friends down there (cells). For the first time, I am not paying for food and accommodation. I am eating courtesy of the state,” said Mwenda, looking slightly tired and letting out an occasional sigh of fatigue.
He said he was occupying a cell with 59 other suspects.
Asked about the mood in the cells, Mwenda replied, “You see, there are all sorts of people in here, pickpockets, defilers, thieves and innocents. I have been writing about VCCU (Violent Crime Crack Unit) victims, but had no access to them. Now Government has brought me to them.”
Dressed in a casual blue and yellow striped sweatshirt, blue trousers and only in his socks without shoes, Mwenda said he had not been subjected to any torture.
Nkutu said The Monitor would defend Mwenda if he is charged with sedition today.
“We are not worried about Andrew’s situation, because it is now 24 hours and they have to arraign him before court, where we shall try to apply for bail. Our legal team is preparing his defence since he could be charged with sedition. We shall vigorously put up a defence for Andrew,” Nkutu said, adding that the law should take its course.
“This law has no place in democratic society. We shall challenge the legality of the of law in the Constitutional Court just like the way we challenged the law on publication of false news,” he said.
Nkutu added, “The law on sedition is in conflict with the provisions of freedom of speech and press.”
A meeting between the Broadcasting Council and the Monitor Publications management over the radio station ended in a stalemate on Friday.
The meeting, reportedly requested for by the Monitor team, took one hour at the Workers House in Kampala.
The Broadcasting Council chairman, Godfrey Mutabazi, said there was no new development, being a weekend. BC secretary Okullu-Mura said he was upcountry and advised the reporter to call him on Monday.
Ends

This article can be found on-line at: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/450526