Dawit Kebede joins Ethiopia’s exiled journalists
New York, November 21, 2011–Dawit Kebede, managing editor of Awramba Times, one of Ethiopia’s two remaining independent Amharic-language newspapers offering critical analysis of local politics, announced today that he was forced to leave the country after he received a tip last week about alleged government plans to re-imprison him. Kebede also said that the paper…
Ethiopia steps up terrorism allegations against journalists
New York, October 24, 2011–Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi last week accused journalists in the country of being “messengers” with “terrorist” groups, while a state newspaper accused the chief editor of an independent publication of having terrorist ties and called on security forces to “take action” against him. The Committee to Protect Journalists today said…
In Ethiopia, terrorism charges against five journalists
New York, September 7, 2011–Ethiopia filed terrorism charges on Tuesday against four independent journalists detained in the country since June and July, along with the editor of a U.S.-based news forum critical of the Addis Ababa government, according to local sources and news reports.
Terrorists? A look at two jailed Ethiopian journalists
At the end of June, Ethiopia’s Anti-Terror Task Force arrested nine people on charges of attempting to “destroy electrical and telecommunication infrastructures” with support from Ethiopia’s arch-enemy, Eritrea. Held under Ethiopia’s far-reaching antiterrorism law, only four of the suspects’ names have so far been revealed and two of them happen to be journalists.
UNHCHR grills Ethiopia on anti-terror law
This week, the Human Rights Committee of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights reviewed Ethiopia’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including its press freedom record. Peppered with questions about an indefensible record of abuse–jailing the second largest number of journalists in Africa and leading the continent in Internet censorship–representatives…
Ethiopian journalist likely held under anti-terrorism law
New York, June 23, 2011–Ethiopian authorities have been holding a newspaper columnist incommunicado since Tuesday, local journalists told the Committee to Protect Journalists. Reeyot Alemu, a regular contributor to the independent weekly Feteh, was expected to spend the next four weeks in preventive detention under what appears to be Ethiopia’s sweeping anti-terrorism law. Alemu,…
Attacks on the Press 2010: Ethiopia
Top Developments • Editor Dawit Kebede honored with International Press Freedom Award. • Authorities jail critical journalists, jam VOA Amharic broadcasts. Key Statistic 7: Hours that two newspaper editors were interrogated as Zenawi gave speech on freedom of choice. The ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front, or EPRDF, imprisoned journalists, jammed foreign broadcasters, and blocked…
‘They wanted me to say I was wrong’: Freed Ethiopian journalist on why 1,500 days in jail failed to silence her
Reeyot Alemu, an Ethiopian journalist who worked for the independent weekly Feteh, spent almost 1,500 days in prison after being arrested in June 2011 and charged with terrorism in 2012. She was released unexpectedly in July.
Sakharov and the fight for a free press in Ethiopia
In 1968, Andrei Sakharov braved censorship and personal risk in the Soviet Union to give humanity an honest and timeless declaration of conscience. That same year, Ethiopia’s most prominent dissenter, Eskinder Nega, was born. In January 1981, a year into Sakharov’s exile in the closed city of Gorky, Reeyot Alemu, another fierce, Ethiopian free thinker,…