No reports of firings of Kikuyu employees in 1992 at the Nation newspaper due to government influence could be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

In December 1992 Africa Confidential reported before the 29 December 1992 elections:

The state-owned Kenya Broadcasting Corporation is avowedly pro-government but national newspapers allows more balance, with the partly KANU-owned Kenya Times vying with the more independent Daily Nation, in which the Aga Khan has a major holding, while Lonrho's Standard is somewhere in the centre. But there are reports of government stooges planted in all major media and of physical attacks by government supporters on staff at the Nation and other papers seen as anti-government (18 Dec. 1992, 1).

There are several 1992 reports on the treatment of journalists and other employees of the Nation Group (publisher of the Daily Nation and Sunday Nation), without reference to their ethnicity.

Index on Censorship reports that "Peter Angweny of The Sunday Nation was forced to flee his office in late 1992 after being threatened by a crowd angry at articles he had written criticising a local politician" (Apr. 1993, 37). The Committee to Protect Journalists reports the same incident, adding that Angweny was a correspondent based in Kisii (Attacks on the Press 1992 1993, 71).

The Index on Censorship reports that on 15 January 1992 two employees of the Daily Nation "were manhandled and detained briefly by Nairobi police officers" for attempting to "cover a secret local government meeting about land allocation," while two other correspondents "were served with intimidatory warnings by Joseph Kamotho, a top KANU politician," adding that one of the reporters was "threatened with death for reporting on the remote Turkana district" (ibid. Apr. 1992, 37). In November 1992 Index on Censorship stated that "the government is reported to have dropped all charges" against the first two detained Nation writers mentioned above (ibid. Nov. 1992, 46). The Committee to Protect Journalists also reported a number of incidents involving staff of the Nation, including the temporary detention in March 1992 of the managing editor of the newspaper, Wangethi Mwangi, and two others (Attacks on the Press 1992 1993, 69).

Country Reports 1992 reports, among other things related to the Nation and the press in general in 1992:

...the Government often took an adversarial stance towards the independent press and continued to use official intimidation to temper news content. Police held senior editors and local reporters of the Nation and the Standard for questioning, one overnight, after the two papers carried graphic reports f the ethnic fighting in Western and Nyanza provinces. None were charged, but the Standard bowed to government pressure by suspending two editors. Provincial officials and M.P.'s issued death threats against reporters from the Nation for writing stories without seeking government clearance (1993, 123).

The Europa World Year Book 1993, which covers events of 1992, names Wangethi Mwangi as Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Nation and Tom Mshindi as its Managing Editor, while George Mbugguss is named as the Managing Editor of the Sunday Nation (both the daily and weekly papers are part of the Nation Group, share the same address and were founded the same year) (1993, 1657).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

Africa Confidential [London]. 18 December 1992. Vol. 33, No. 25. "Kenya: Democracy Could be the Loser."

Attacks on the Press 1992. 1993. "Kenya." New York: Committee to Protect Journalists.

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1992. 1993. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of State.

Europa World Year Book 1983. Vol. II. 1993. "Kenya: The Press."

Index on Censorship [London]. April 1993. No. 4. "Kenya."

_____. November 1992. No. 10. "Kenya."

_____. April 1992. No. 4. "Kenya."