From: emmanuel (emmanuel@bayou.com)
Date: Sat Sep 13 2008 - 16:01:06 EDT
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25387
Ethiopia | 7.02.2008
Ethiopia - Annual Report 2008
The Ethiopia of Meles Zenawi is not the dictatorship of former president
Mengistu, who was overthrown in 1991 and who held the country in a
Stalinist grip. Privately-owned newspapers do their best to enliven the
intellectual life of the capital, Addis Ababa but the climate is
hostile. Heavy prison sentences are always inflicted on those who an
easily influenced court system considers guilty of “defamation” or
“publishing false news”. Self-censorship is constant. Foreign
correspondents based in Ethiopia have to take care not to embarrass the
government, which is facing a raft of military problems in the provinces
and the region, and which reacts with extreme harshness towards
journalists it views as dangerous.
Relative relaxation
The year 2007 experienced a relative relaxation with the acquittal of
detainees facing heavy jail sentences. The international community had
been watching for two years as the leadership of the main opposition
coalition and newspaper bosses who supported them awaited trial in jail
on charges which could mean the death penalty. But while they were being
held in atrocious conditions and treated with contempt by the
government, the federal high court in April acquitted 25 of the accused
in a major political trial being held in Addis Ababa for a year. They
had been charged with “genocide”, “high treason” and “attempted
overthrow of the constitutional order” and had been held in prison since
November 2005, after being arrested in the round-ups by Ethiopian police
cracking down after protest rallies organised by the chief opposition
grouping, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD, Kinijit in
Amharic). Eight of the 25 people who were freed were journalists. The
court ruled that the prosecutor had not presented sufficiently
convincing evidence of their guilt. A first step appeared to have been
taken to resolve a crisis that had been poisoning Ethiopian political life.
But there was a spectacular reversal on 16 July when it was learned with
astonishment that six journalists were among 43 opposition figures
sentenced, in an identical case, to prison terms ranging from 18 months
to life imprisonment. Most of them were found guilty of “attempting to
overturn the constitutional order”. Four of them were however released
on the 20 July after benefiting from an amnesty, the last two, who were
in exile abroad, having been tried in their absence. One month later the
last three journalists detained since November 2005 were freed as a
result of a presidential pardon. The crisis, which had lasted for 22
months, thus came to a final conclusion.
However even for ordinary press cases, the Ethiopian government has a
harsh legislative arsenal at its disposal and is prepared to use it to
get rid of awkward journalists and it has become commonplace for it to
dig up old cases. The Supreme Court in January rejected an appeal from
Abraham Reta, journalist on the privately-owned weekly Addis Admas,
against his one-year sentence imposed for “defamation” in May 2006 for
an article published in 2002, when he was editor of the weekly Ruh, in
which he named without proof three top officials allegedly implicated in
a corruption case. He was first arrested in April 2006 and served a
three-month jail sentence before being released on bail while awaiting
the outcome of his appeal. After several hearings at which Abraham Reta
pleaded not guilty and was forced to reveal the source of his article,
he was sent back to prison to serve the last nine months of his
sentence. Between December 2005 and December 2006, Reporters Without
Borders recorded four cases of journalists being sent to prison for long
periods (between eight and 18 month) for four year old cases. All have
since been released, but they do not look like being able to resume
their work as journalists.
Hostages taken in Somalia
A cautious relaxation by the Ethiopian government at the end of the
year, with the creation of a private independent radio and reform of the
press law, cannot mask the fact that Ethiopia is a country in which the
free exercise of journalism rapidly comes up against the jumpiness of
the part of the authorities.
Any deterioration in the political climate systematically works through
to the press. The sending of the Ethiopian army into Somalia in support
of transitional government forces at the end of December 2006 was a
source of additional tension. And the political and military support by
neighbouring Eritrea for Somalia’s Union of the Islamic Courts
exacerbated the situation to the extent that two journalists working for
public media in Asmara were taken hostage by Ethiopian forces as they
tried to flee the combat zone.
Saleh Idris Gama, journalist on Eritrean state-run Eri-TV, and cameraman
Tesfalidet Kidane Tesfazghi disappeared in Mogadishu at the end of 2006.
Reporters Without Borders, supplied their names to the Somali government
at the end of February 2007 in a bid to find out if they were being
detained or had been identified as casualties of the fighting. No reply
had yet been given to this request when, at the start of April, the
Eritrean foreign minister publicly announced the arrest of several of
its nationals in Somalia, confirming that the team from Eri-TV were
still alive. Several days previously, having obtained similar
information, Reporters Without Borders had contacted Somali intelligence
seeking news of the Eritrean journalists, providing their identity and
asking for the right to make telephone contact with them. This request
had been rejected.
A few days later, video footage of Saleh Idris Gama and Tesfalidet
Kidane Tesfazghi were placed on a pro-governmental Ethiopian website,
subtitles to the interview called them “shabia soldiers” (shabia meaning
“popular”, the nickname for the Eritrean regime). Since then the two men
have been held by the intelligence services somewhere in Ethiopia and
the Addis Ababa government refuses to provide any information about them.
They are not the only journalists imprisoned in Ethiopia about whom very
little information is available. Shiferraw Insermu, a journalist on the
Oromo service of state-run ETV suspected of being an informer for the
separatist Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), is still languishing in prison
after he and his colleague Dhabassa Wakjira were arrested for the first
time at their homes in Addis Ababa, on 22 April 2004. The federal high
court ordered their release on bail on the following 9 August, but only
Shiferraw Insermu was set free. The journalist was rearrested on 17
August and released on order of the federal high court in mid-October.
ETV refused to allow him to resume his job and he was trying to find
other work when he was arrested for a third time, on 11 January 2005. He
has remained in custody since that date, most likely at the central
prison known as “Kerchiele”. Dhabassa Wakjira was held without
interruption until 2006, as the prison authorities failed to comply with
various court orders to release him on bail. He was finally released and
has since fled Ethiopia and sought asylum abroad.
Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press
freedom throughout the world. It has nine national sections (Austria,
Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland).
It has representatives in Bangkok, London, New York, Tokyo and
Washington. And it has more than 120 correspondents worldwide.
© Reporters Without Borders 2008
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