Regional scribes appeal for more media freedom

KIGALI - A two-day conference of regional media practitioners ended in Kigali yesterday with an appeal for their governments to embrace media freedom.  According to the declaration released at the end of the meeting, practitioners raised concerns of individual risks and dangers journalists in the Eastern African region still face. “We are greatly concerned on journalist harassment, cruel and degrading punishments, torture, intimidation, death threats, imprisonment, abductions, arbitrary arrests, killings and unlawful detention,” the declaration reads. Representatives of journalists’ bodies the Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Tanzania, Seychelles, Comoros, Rwanda and Burundi, participated in the conference that was held under the theme: Media, Dialogue, Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation.