Media Defence’s Fellowship Programme supports lawyers working on freedom of expression in deepening their skills, broadening their networks, and connecting with peers across the globe. Our most recent legal fellow, Sumayyah J. Mokku, Litigation Counsel at the Katiba Institute and Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, reflects on what the programme gave her and how she will apply it to her work defending journalists against the mounting threats facing the press in her country.
It’s not simple for Sumayyah to pin down one prominent threat she is witnessing in her work. In Kenya, she explains, the threats facing journalists rarely come from one direction. Violence during protests, gender-based attacks on female reporters, digital surveillance, and a relentless cycle of repressive legislation all converge to make press freedom work some of the most urgent issues in the region. For lawyers like Sumayyah, navigating this landscape requires not only legal expertise but a broader perspective on how these threats are playing out globally.
Sumayyah works at the Katiba Institute, a Kenyan civil society organisation whose mission is to promote knowledge and understanding of Kenya’s 2010 Constitution, defend it, and facilitate its full implementation. It operates across public interest litigation, research, constitutional education, and access to information, regularly invoking Article 35 of the Constitution to give effect to the principles of transparency and accountability. The Institute, whose very name translates to “constitution”, works at the heart of Kenya’s constitutional project: the belief that a just and equitable society is not only possible, but legally reachable.
A landscape under pressure
The picture Sumayyah paints of press freedom in Kenya today is one of overlapping threats: “We have the more traditional threats, such as violence against journalists, especially in the wake of political discourses like protests and civil actions, which is essentially what happened in 2024 and 2025. We also have gender-specific violence for female journalists. We have more threats in the context of the digital age. Spyware and surveillance are now an increasingly prominent issue.”
But the problem she returns to most urgently is legislative. “For me, and more related to the work that I do, are the regressive laws that keep coming up every single time. It’s really like a game of whack-a-mole. You just solve it here, and they have it popping up there in another piece of legislation.”
The pattern, she argues, is deliberate. “It was the case with the Computer Misuse and Cyber Crimes Act. We now have an AI bill, which is being reviewed. If you look at it, you’ll just find more or less similar provisions: broad, vague, inconsistent provisions just basically meant to suppress a free press in Kenya.”
What the fellowship opened up
It was to broaden her perspective on the global dimensions of press freedom – and to deepen Media Defence’s understanding of the Kenyan media landscape – that Sumayyah joined the Fellowship Programme, an initiative designed to build a more resilient global community of legal defenders of the press.
After spending two weeks at our London office, she said the programme gave her access to perspectives and issues she had not encountered in her domestic practice. But one thing in particular stuck with her: “The ah-ha moment for me was learning about this emerging issue of misuse of Interpol red notices and extradition notices, where we have countries that are using this opportunity to convict journalists for ridiculous offences, sometimes even in absentia.
“They request red notices to be issued against journalists, and then once they’re extradited to the country, they cook up some unscrupulous offence, in violation of the right to fair trial.”
A case that captures the stakes
The work Sumayyah does through Katiba Institute brings her into contact with cases that illustrate what is at risk when press freedom erodes. She is currently working on a case that, she says, resonates particularly with her and captures the reasons she does what she does. It concerns an investigative Kenyan journalist who is facing a SLAPP suit: “The context in which he was SLAPPed was that he was investigating how the largest telco in Kenya was allegedly sharing information with law enforcement officers about the location of protesters, bloggers, or anyone who had any difference with the government while protests were happening. He really wanted to verify the story. That’s the main purpose of the right to access information. But he’s been entangled in a civil dispute for two years.”
For Sumayyah, the implications extend far beyond one journalist’s legal battles. “This case paints a very chilling effect for journalists: does it mean that every single time someone requests information, they should generally expect a lawsuit in return?”
It is a question that challenges the very things that constitutional protections are supposed to guarantee, and illustrates what it means to work in an environment where exercising a legal right becomes a source of legal peril.
Media Defence’s Fellowship Programme is part of a wider commitment to strengthening the capacity of lawyers defending journalists around the world. Alongside litigation surgeries, know-how sessions, and a global network of over 300 lawyers, the programme aims to ensure that those who defend the press are not doing so alone.
