Kenya: Press freedom body condemns media bill

(SomaliNet) Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki should block a bill that would force journalists to disclose their sources to the government; Press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders urged the president on Wednesday.

The Media Bill, passed by parliament this month, gives the Kenyan government the right to demand the names of their sources in news reports that give rise to legal disputes.

\"When a story includes unnamed parties who are not disclosed and the same becomes the subject of a legal tussle as to who is meant, then the editor shall be obliged to disclose the identity of the party or parties referred to,\" the Media Bill states.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the bill in a statement as an attack on press liberty that would have \"disastrous consequences for Kenyan democracy\".

\"The confidentiality of sources, a fundamental and essential condition of press freedom, would no longer be guaranteed,\" it said. \"Journalists are deprived of valuable information if their sources cannot be sure that their identity will be protected.\"

Critics have denounced the bill as a return to the repressive era of former President Daniel Arap Moi, under whose rule journalists were routinely arrested and harassed. -Reuters