NAIROBI — More than four in ten journalists and media organisations in Kenya have faced legal threats in response to their reporting, including arrest, costly litigation and the forced shutdown of online platforms, according to a landmark report that lays bare the systematic use of the law to silence the press in one of Africa’s most prominent democracies.
The report, Weaponising the Law: Press Freedom in Kenya, published by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in partnership with ALT Advisory and Power Law Africa, identifies six primary categories of legal threat confronting Kenyan media: abuse of court processes, regressive legislation, weak enforcement of media protections, technology-facilitated harms, journalist safety and impunity, and threats to the financial sustainability of media outlets.
The findings arrive at a volatile moment. Kenya’s press faced intensifying pressure during the 2024 anti-Finance Bill protests, when authorities unconstitutionally banned live media coverage of demonstrations. With general elections scheduled for 2027, concerns about the ability of journalists to report freely are sharpening. More than half of survey participants said they lacked confidence in the legal system’s ability to protect journalists covering sensitive or controversial topics.
“The issues and real cases outlined in this report put forward a stark and indisputable assessment of the fragile media freedom landscape in Kenya,” said Elizabeth Onyango, the Foundation’s Regional Head for Africa, citing incidents ranging from telecom giants slapping investigative journalists with ruinous lawsuits to defamation claims linked to the murder of a blogger.
Kenya’s constitution, adopted in 2010, provides robust protections for press freedom and freedom of expression. But researchers found that older, pre-constitutional laws remain on the statute books and continue to be used against journalists, while newer cybercrime and counterterrorism legislation is being applied in overly broad or ambiguous ways. At the same time, laws designed to protect journalists — including freedom of information provisions — are routinely ignored, with requests going unanswered and attacks on journalists inadequately investigated.
The result, the report argues, is a culture of impunity that emboldens those seeking to intimidate reporters and suppress public interest journalism.
Sixty-five percent of media professionals surveyed identified legal protection as their most urgent need for ensuring the sustainability of journalism. That figure underscores a broader crisis: independent media, already squeezed by collapsing advertising revenues and the rise of citizen journalism and artificial intelligence, faces an additional front of legally sanctioned pressure. Researchers say the legal framework has not kept pace with the rapidly evolving media landscape and is ill-equipped to defend media viability in the digital era.
The report warns that Kenya should not be viewed in isolation. Across Africa, researchers identified coordinated patterns of legal weaponisation targeting journalists, including censorship guidelines, stalled or revoked press accreditations, surveillance by security forces, and nationwide internet shutdowns deployed at critical moments of public unrest.
“Kenya is often perceived to be representative of democratic progress within Africa,” Onyango said. “But this research highlights a deteriorating space for media, and demonstrates the persistent and growing use of the law to stifle press freedom and control the flow of information.”
The report calls for sustained, multisectoral action — bringing together journalists, lawyers, civil society organisations, technology companies and policymakers — to reform legislation, strengthen enforcement of existing protections, and expand access to legal support for journalists. It sets out specific, evidence-based recommendations for actors across what it describes as the “media freedom ecosystem.”
Will Church, the Foundation’s Director of Media Freedom, said the goal was to equip stakeholders not only to defend against individual legal attacks but to challenge the broader frameworks that make those attacks possible.
The Kenya report is the first in a series of country-level reviews the Foundation intends to publish, drawing on its 2023 global report on legal threats to the press.
The full report is available at the Thomson Reuters Foundation website.
