CPJ concerned about government intervention in journalists’ association
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned by the Ethiopian government’s intervention in the affairs of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association (EFJA), an independent organization dedicated to promoting press freedom and protecting the rights of journalists.
Journalists’ association suspended
New York, November 12, 2003—The Ethiopian Free Press Journalists’ Association (EFJA) has received a letter from the Justice Ministry, announcing that the organization is suspended, because of failure to comply with audit and licensing requirements. EFJA president, Kifle Mulat, says the organization is being targeted for political reasons, but the government says EFJA has not…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned by the recent violent attack on Araya Tesfa Mariam, a journalist working for the Amharic-language weekly Ethiop. On October 1, unidentified assailants attacked and brutally beat Mariam near his home in the capital, Addis Ababa. According to local journalists, Mariam is still receiving medical…
Free Joshua
Languishing in prison since the fall of 2001, prominent Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes staged a hunger strike on March 31 with nine other colleagues in hopes of spurring their release. Instead, government officials transferred the journalists to an undisclosed location–and no one has heard from them since.
Special Reports
Languishing in prison since the fall of 2001, prominent Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes staged a hunger strike on March 31 with nine other colleagues in hopes of spurring their release. Instead, government officials transferred the journalists to an undisclosed location–and no one has heard from them since.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by the recent jailing of Melese Shine, editor-in-chief of the Amharic-language weekly Ethiop. Another journalist, Tewodros Kassa, the former editor-in-chief of Ethiop, has been imprisoned since May 2002. Shine was charged with defamation under Ethiopia’s Press Proclamation No. 34/1992 after a letter to the…
Attacks on the Press 2002: Africa Analysis
Although the Kenya-based East African Standard, one of Africa’s oldest continuously published newspapers, marked its 100th anniversary in November, journalism remains a difficult profession on the continent, with adverse government policies and multifaceted economic woes still undermining the full development of African media.
Attacks on the Press 2002: Ethiopia
In early December, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi surprised his detractors by inviting them to a series of debates on government policies and the future of the country. The organizer of the unprecedented forum, an independent association known as the Inter Africa Group, said the goal was to foster “the exchange of views between the government…