Release BBC filmmakers' equipment, phones, DCI told

Civil society groups, legal practitioners, and relatives of four filmmakers arrested last Friday are mounting pressure on the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to return confiscated electronic equipment, days after their release on free bond.

The items still held by DCI include phones, laptops, and CPU units, which the filmmakers rely on for their daily production work.

The four, who include Nicholas Wambugu, Brian Adagala, Chris Wamae, and Mark Denver Karubiu, were picked up from their Karen-based studio on the Friday evening and spent the night in police custody at Pangani and Muthaiga police stations.

The arrests were reportedly linked to the controversial BBC documentary “The Blood Parliament”, though no formal charges have been preferred against the four, raising alarm among rights groups who now view the detentions as intimidation tactics.

According to Irungu Houghton, Executive Director of Amnesty International Kenya, who spoke outside the DCI headquarters on Tuesday, it is not right to detain the items without cause.

• .

  Keep Reading

• 
  Attacks on journalists raise concern over media censorship in East Africa
• 
  Why Kenya must develop effective policies and laws on reparations
• 
  Gachagua ally dumps him for 'trying to control' Mt Kenya politics
• 
  KNCHR decries killings, abductions in security crackdown in Isiolo, Marsabit

“We have heard emphatically from the DCI that there is no summons. Furthermore, there is no warrant of arrest, they are not suspects. We would like them to essentially receive back their property so that they can continue to do what they do, which is essentially to make independent films, which, as far as we understand, is not a crime in this country,” said Houghton.

Gloria Kimani, a Law Society of Kenya (LSK) council member, decried what she described as illegal and coercive tactics used by the investigators.

“They were coerced to give their PINs and phones, and laptops. They were told to make statements, which they were against, but they were told to do them. They were released on Saturday on free bond.

However, the DCI summoned them again and refused to give them their items back. This is against the law. They are denying these boys from continuing with their businesses,” said Kimani.

Kimani said that the ongoing police actions, including repeated summons without charges, are a phishing expedition and harassment, and that such tactics violate the filmmakers’ constitutional rights.

“They have no freedom; they have not been given any court date. We are asking the DCI Director to look at what he is causing the families and to release the laptops that they use to do their work,” she said.

Hellen, the mother of Mark Denver Karubiu, recounted the harrowing experience of learning about the arrest of her son from breaking news on Television.

“We have gone through a lot of torture from Friday, watching through the media that your son has been arrested and his phone is off, you cannot call him. These are our children. We know them as our innocent children. They are earning a living. How do we now have these young men jobless?”