Posts Tagged ‘Ethiopia’
April 27th, 2012
Access to the website of
Ethiopia’s leading weekly newspaper
has been blocked within the country. The website of privately-owned weekly,
The Reporter, has been inaccessible since 21 April, other than through a proxy server. Though the reason for the blocking is unclear, it has been speculated that the block is being carried out by the state-owned company Ethio-Telecom, the only ISP in the country. The site usually has 30,000 visitors per day.
January 27th, 2012
Jailed
Ethiopian dissident blogger Eskinder Nega will
stand trial in March for terrorism charges, a federal high court judge ruled this week. He could face the death penalty if convicted. Nega and five other journalists were last November
charged with providing support to
Ginbot 7, a banned opposition movement that the government formally designated a terrorist entity under the 2009 anti-terrorism law last year. At this week’s hearing, the judge confirmed all six charges for two of those accused and dismissed all but one charge against three others.
January 20th, 2012
Two journalists and a US-based blogger (tried in absentia), were
convicted on charges of terrorism in Addis Ababa yesterday. They may face the death penalty. Reeyot Alemu, a columnist with the independent weekly Feteh, deputy editor Woubshet Taye of the now-defunct weekly Awramba Times, and Elias Kifle, exiled editor of the Washington-based opposition website
Ethiopian Review, were
charged with lending support to an underground network of outlawed opposition groups.
December 27th, 2011
An Ethiopian court has
sentenced two Swedish journalists to 11 years in prison on charges of supporting terrorism after the pair illegally entered the country with an ethnic Somali rebel group.Photojournalist Johan Persson and reporter Martin Schibbye were
detained by Ethiopian security forces in July while travelling with the outlawed separatist group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, and were put on
trial in October. The chairman of the Swedish Union of Journalists, Jonas Nordling,
has been reported as saying that the sentence is aimed at deterring journalists from investigating alleged human rights abuses in the tense Ogaden region, adding that there is no evidence to support the pair’s conviction on terror charges.
October 12th, 2011
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zanawi
publicly accused two imprisoned
Swedish journalists of being terrorists on Monday. In an interview with Norwegian newspaper
Aftenposten, Zenawi said Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye, of Sweden-based photo agency Kontinent, were accomplices to terrorists. “They are, at the very least, messenger boys of a terrorist organisation. They are not journalists,” the prime minister said. Persson and Schibbye
were arrested after they crossed with rebels of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) into Ogaden. Zanawi added: ”Why would a journalist be involved with a terrorist organisation and enter a country with that terrorist organisation, escorted by armed terrorists?”
September 19th, 2011
Two independent journalists
have been arrested by
Ethiopian authorities for being involved in a terrorism plot. Security forces took journalist Sileshi Hagos from his home on 9 September. Hagos worked as the managing director for Change, a magazine that covered Ginbot 7, Ethiopia’s leading opposition party which has also been banned under allegations of terrorism. On 14 September, officials also arrested Eskinder Nega, a dissident blogger and journalist. Local journalists speculate that Nega’s arrest was sparked by a column critical of the arrest of a famous Ethiopian actor on charges of terrorism. Four journalists were
arrested on similar charges earlier this month.
September 15th, 2011
An Ethiopian reporter cited by name in US diplomatic cables
disclosed last month by WikiLeaks has been
forced to flee the country after police interrogated him over the identity of an unnamed government source in the cable. On 5 and 6 September, officials from Ethiopia’s Government Communication Affairs Office (GCAO) summoned journalist Argaw Ashine to their offices in Addis Ababa with his press accreditation. Local journalists said the reporter was cited in an 26 October 26 2009
cable from the US embassy in Ethiopia regarding purported GCAO plans in 2009 to silence the now-defunct Addis Neger, then the country’s leading independent newspaper.
September 8th, 2011
Terrorism charges have been filed against five journalists in
Ethiopia. Four independent journalists and the editor of a US based news forum have been detained in the country since June and July. The group were formally charged before the High Court on Tuesday, following their entry to Ethiopia in June with the Ogaden National Liberation Front, which is classed as a
terrorist organisation by the government. Terrorism charges were also filed in absentia against Elias Kifle, editor of US-based anti-government forum Ethiopian Review.
