Veteran Journalist Macharia Gaitho Abducted by Police

Veteran journalist Macharia Gaitho has been forcefully arrested by police officers at Karen police station. 

Gaitho was driving his vehicle with his son who recorded the harassment and subsequent arrest of the journalist.

Further, the police officers at Karen Police station took the journalist to an unknown place after arresting him. 

The incident has occurred as police officers at the station stood by and watched as the unknown men in civilian clothes forcefully took him away. 

Macharia Gaitho is a former managing editor for special projects with the Nation Media Group in Nairobi.

However, he is now an independent journalist running a weekly opinion column with the group’s Daily Nation and providing political analysis for a number of newspapers across East Africa. 

He has been voicing his discontent with the government of Kenya and the state of the nation amidst anti-government protests in the country.

Also Read: Journalists to Join Tuesday Protests Against Standard Group

How Macharia Gaitho has Fought Against Political Injustices

In a past interview with Parents Africa magazine, Gaitho said that he is the kind of person who speaks his mind notwithstanding whom it may offend, an audacity he explained got him into the media indutsry.

“I studied Design at the University of Nairobi, and after graduation worked for some time with a graphic design firm in Nairobi. Later, I joined the Ministry of Labour’s Kenya Textile Training Institute as an instructor, before I ditched it for journalism at the Weekly Review.”

“Those of us who got into the media in the 80s were considered foolish, as the market was limited, the job not well paying and to cap it all, it was a high-risk career. However, I stuck because I had a passion for it,” he said.

Furthermore, he admitted to rubbing some politicians up the wrong way as he was a political analyst explaining that his job came with risks and misconceptions about his personal political stand, but he learnt to remain an unbiased political journalist.

“My worst moments remain the days when media was a target by the government such as during the time of the pro-democracy Saba Saba rallies,

“The murder of Robert Ouko in 1990, and as well the period when journalists were closely monitored, phones tapped, and people couldn’t talk politics openly, often being sent to jail on trumped-up charges,” he added.

Also Read: LIVE UPDATES: Two Killed, Several Injured in Anti-Govt Protests

Journalist Shot During Protests in Nakuru

Catherine Kariuki, a media max journalist was shot by police officers while covering protests in Nakuru. She sustained a gunshot injury to the thigh and is recuperating at a Nakuru hospital where she was rushed by her colleagues following the incident.

So far, the Media Council of Kenya among other media entities have condemned the shooting of a media practitioner terming it as a shooting as a “targeted attack” by a “rogue police officer.”

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