AI lashes Ethiopia journalists’ arrests
Amnesty International has warned
the Ethiopian government it risks rolling back the great progress it made on
media freedom last year after its announcement that it plans to charge
journalists and media outlets for their reporting on the armed forces.
Since taking office in April
2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has overturned the repressive
civil society law and released dozens of detained journalists and bloggers.
By the end of 2018, not a single
journalist remained behind bars, according to the Committee to Protect
Journalists, and Ethiopia thereby leapt 40 places up the World Press Freedom
Index this year.
However, following a wave of
arrests of journalists in the past weeks, the Ministry of Defence has announced
plans to charge journalists and media houses for “publishing defamatory information
about the Ethiopia National Defence Forces.”
“After making great strides on
press freedom, Ahmed’s government received glowing tributes, and the honour of
hosting this year’s World Press Freedom Day event,” Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty
International’s Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes said.
“This new round of arrests is a
hugely regressive move that risks rolling back the progress witnessed in 2018.
All journalists arrested must be immediately released and all charges against
them unconditionally dropped.”
Berihun Adane, editor-in-chief of
the privately-owned Asrat TV and the weekly Berera newspaper, was arrested on 26
June, while Elias Gebru, editor of the Enqu magazine, defunct since 2014,
was arrested on 6 July.
Both journalists have since been
charged under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (2009) which was used by previous
governments to bring trumped-up charges against its critics.
The latest round of arrests in
the wake of the 22 June assassination of the army chief of staff and other high-ranking
government officers has also targeted activists and members of the opposition
National Movement of the Amhara.
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