The plane carrying the self-proclaimed general of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Dr.Miguna Miguna landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) at 2.30pm.
At the clearing desk, Miguna Miguna refused to hand over his Canadian passport to the officials of the immigration department. The officials refused to clear him.
They claimed he is not a Kenyan and that he needs to regularize his citizenship first before he is allowed to go but he refused to sign the documents that he was presented with.
This Miguna Miguna issue culminated into a full-blown saga where the police were engaged to force him into a Dubai-bound plane. He refused to board and he was forced to spend the night detained at JKIA.
The police also turned to journalists and chased them away. Some suffered body injuries while some had their equipment destroyed.
The next day, journalists were not allowed into the airport. According to reports by KTN News, their senior journalists were denied entry into the airport.
When the spokesperson at the interior ministry Mwendwa Njoka was contacted for clarification, he said (through a phone call conversation) that the airport is a “protected area” and that the state has the right to block journalists not to access it.
That journalists should ask for permission to report whatever is happening within the premises of the airport and they can be allowed or denied.
For those who did not know, there are some places in Kenya that photography is not allowed. After terrorists attacked Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi’s Westlands area, the government restricted photography in some areas in a bid to fight terrorism and 'bad publicity' and airports are one such area.
A few years ago, some foreign journalists were arrested and detained for taking photos at Wilson airport.
Some of the “protected areas” where photography is not allowed include Statehouse, parliament buildings, Times Towers, Supreme Court, Central bank of Kenya, Likoni Ferry channel in Mombasa and KICC.
According to www.kachwanya.com, even some streets are 'protected areas'. This was after the blogger was stopped from taking a photo of a certain street in Nakuru town.