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Earlier this week on BoingBoing, we shared news of violent raids by police in Kenya on offices of the East African Standard newspaper, and posted screengrab stills from CCTV video documenting the raid. Now, by way of East African Standard editors, we've obtained a copy of a Kenyan news report with the actual security camera footage.
Melodramatic background music makes the segment more surreal, as does the anchor's sarcastic play-by-play. "This light-skinned man appears to be getting instructions from his cellular phone," says the voiceover. At one point, the anchor makes fun of an amply sized member of the jackbooted state thug squad who is "clearly too robust for this kind of hard work." After the police finish trashing all the equipment and terrifying newspaper employees, one of them realizes that everything's been captured on a security camera. "They tinkered with it," reports the breathless video news announcer -- but they did not succeed in destroying it.
And here it is. YouTube Link, and here's a torrent (6.5MB MPEG-4). (Thanks, Kathryn Cramer, and mentalacrobatics )
Previously on BoingBoing:
Kenya: CCTV video of raid on press, blogger accounts
Media shutdown in Kenya -- TV station, newspaper torched
Update: The East African Standard has this story about a second, failed round of police raids aimed at obtaining "subversive material" stored on journalists' computers:
Kenya’s media was gripped by anxiety on Friday night after word went round that police were planning a raid on yet to be established premises. At the Standard Group’s I&M headquarters tension was high as word indicated that the Quick Response Unit was assembling in Nairobi area police headquarters shortly before midnight to prepare for a second raid to retrieve "specific files".Link (Thanks, Kathryn Cramer!)The raids, however, aborted following heavy and long rains and after the media learnt of the police intents. As soon as the media learnt of the intended operation, concerned journalists expressed fear that the QRU squad could have been preparing to raid the homes of media practitioners the government does not like.
The reports emerged a few hours after Internal Security Minister John Michuki had alleged that the Government had found subversive material in computers stolen from the Standard Group on Thursday morning when hooded police officers raided the Group’s premises against the law. (...) Reportedly, the second raid was to target specific editors’ and reporters’ desks in the Standard offices.