K24 TV journalist Joel Chacha has been injured while covering the anti-government protests in Nairobi.
Chacha who was covering the protests within the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) on Tuesday, July 2, 2024, was hit by a tear gas canister that was lobbed by the police along Tom Mboya Street.
In a video captured by his colleagues, Chacha is seen holding onto his left leg which was bleeding.
The police were still lobbing tear gas to disperse the protesters, and the injured journalist was thus helped by his colleagues to a safer place.
K24 TV reporter injured by a teargas lobbed along Tom Mboya street pic.twitter.com/m3mJ8qZhBU
— K24 TV (@K24Tv) July 2, 2024
Since the onset of the anti-Finance Bill 2024 and anti-government protests in the country, several journalists have sustained various injuries.
Brutality against journalists
The Kenya Media Sector Working Group (KMSWG) on June 25, 2024, issued an update on the number of journalists that had been injured during the deadly protests that had been witnessed when the anti-Finance Bill protesters invaded parliament.
The KMSWG in a statement condemned the violence meted by the police on the journalists who have been covering the protests.
“The Kenya Media Sector Working Group, a coalition of media entities in Kenya, shocked beyond comfort over unprecedented violence police today meted on journalists who were deployed by media houses to inform Kenya about countrywide protests against Finance Bill 2024,” the statement reads in part.
AFP journalist Collins Olunga and Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) photographer John Omido are some of the journalists who sustained injuries during the June 25, 2024 protests.
Olunga was shot by the police while Omido was sprayed with water mixed with harmful chemicals meant to disperse protesters.
Nation Media Group‘s Maureen Muthoni was injured by the police and arrested during the Tuesday, June 18, 2024 protests.
Standard Media‘s Justus Mwangi was roughed up by the police, bundled into a police vehicle, and thrown off the speeding vehicle during the Tuesday, June 18, 2024 protests.
Court orders
Police have been seen using tear gas against the Tuesday, July 2, 2024 peaceful protesters, even after been barred by the court.
The High Court of Kenya sitting at Malindi Constitutional and Judicial Review Division on June 28, 2024, issued orders barring the police from using brutal force against peaceful protesters.
Lawyer Saitabao Ole Kanchory had on June 24, 2024, moved to the court seeking orders to bar the police from using brutal force, carrying out extra judicial killings, making illegal arrests, intimidation, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other excesses and violence against peaceful protesters.