Ethiopia

Ethiopian authorities have arrested nine journalists and bloggers on allegations that they worked for foreign human rights groups or used social media to incite violence, sources told the International Press Institute (IPI) Monday, saying they feared additional detentions. IPI condemned the arrests, which targeted some individuals who met with the organisation’s representatives during a press...

The guilty verdict and prison sentence given to veteran Somali journalist, Mohamed Aweys Mudey, is unacceptable, according to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). It has appealed to Ethiopian authorities to quash his sentence and release him with immediate effect. According to IFJ affiliate, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Mudey has been sentenced to 27 years in...

Haileyesus Worku, the editor of the state-owned Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency (ERTA), and one of his reporters, Abdulsemed Mohammed, were finally released on bail of 5,000 birr (205 euros) on July 22 after being held for 15 months on charges of illegally selling state-owned news content for personal gain, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the apparent complicity between the Ethiopian authorities and those in Somalia’s semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland in arresting journalists and trying to gag the media. Two Swedish journalists, reporter Martin Schibbye and photographer Johan Persson, were arrested after crossing from Puntland into Ethiopia...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the arrests of two journalists working for privately-owned newspapers in the past few days. The latest victim is Reyot Alemu, a young woman reporter for the Amharic-language weekly Fitih, who was arrested on June 21, two days after the arrest of Woubeshet Taye, the deputy editor of the Amharic-language Awramba Times...

Officials in Ethiopia hijacked a local UNESCO-sponsored World Press Freedom Day event, installing government-backed journalists as speakers and nixing independent journalists slated to speak. There was no discussion, as originally planned, of this year's global theme on new media and the Internet at the Tuesday forum, according to local sources and news reports. The programme for the event at...

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists has called on authorities in Ethiopia to ensure that broadcasts of the German state-funded station Deutsche Welle, which had been jammed, be allowed to air freely. Local journalists confirmed a report by the Bonn-based international broadcaster that its programs were inaudible in Ethiopia last week until Friday. The management of...

There has been a steadily worsening climate of harassment and intimidation that the Ethiopian authorities have imposed on the media, especially the private media, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Eskinder Nega, a former journalist jailed along with his wife in 2005 for supporting the protests that followed legislative elections, is again under pressure...

Authorities in Ethiopia's northeastern region of Afar are holding a journalist without charge since September 11, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Akram Ezedin is jailed in Asaita, the regional capital of Afar. He is 17 years old. His father is Ezedin Mohamed, the editor of Al-Quds, a privately owned Islamic weekly newspaper based in capital city of Addis...

Ethiopia's High Court has imposed heavy prison sentences on four journalists jailed in connection with their coverage of deadly post-election unrest in 2005, after the journalists waived their defence and pleaded guilty in anticipation of a pardon, according to the Comittee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). All of them worked for now-defunct Amharic-language weeklies. Editors Dawit Kebede of Hadar and...