Three Ethiopian journalists arrested this summer and charged with terrorism appeared before an Addis Ababa court last week. Their respective cases, along with that of two Swedish journalists detained in eastern Ethiopia in July, have deepened suspicions that the government is using a new, vaguely-worded national security law to stifle independent media in the country.
The court ordered Wubshet Taye, deputy editor of the Awramba Times, and Reyot Alemu, a reporter for the newspaper Fateh, to reappear on 25 November, allowing time for the prosecution to amend its charges, Mesfin Negash, managing editor of the Ethiopian online newspaper Addis Neger, told the International Press Institute (IPI). Mr. Taye and Ms. Alemu have been held without bail since June, when they were arrested and accused of planning to sabotage power lines and recruiting people to destabilise the government, as IPI previously reported.
According to the London-based Bureau for Investigative Journalism, both journalists are being held in Addis Ababa’s Maikelawi prison, which serves as the federal police’s “Central Investigation Department.” A 2010 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleged frequent and systematic use of torture at the facility.
A third journalist, critical columnist Eskinder Nega, was ordered to return to court on 10 November, Mr. Negash further communicated. Mr. Nega had been arrested in early September and accused by the government of “leading a plan to throw the country into serious political chaos through a series of terror attacks.”
Mr. Nega has been an outspoken critic of the administration of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) party; he and his wife, publisher Serkalem Fasil, were previously jailed for 17 months as part of the government’s crackdown on post-election dissidence in 2005, Voice of America (VOA) and other sources reported. Mr. Nega told VOA earlier that federal police had also briefly detained him this past February and accused him of “trying to incite Egyptian and Tunisian-like protests”.
The current law in question, known as the Anti-Terror Proclamation, was enacted by the Zenawi administration in 2009. According to HRW, which had urged the government to reject the bill, it prescribes up to 20 years in prison for anyone found to have written or distributed information seen as supporting or encouraging terrorism.
The provision allows authorities to hold individuals without specific charges for up to four months, as it has done in the case of Mr. Aye and Ms. Alemu. The government has also frequently denied detainees the right to legal representation, HRW further reported.
A total of seven journalists have been charged over the past four months under the new law’s broadly defined mandate. In addition to Mr. Taye, Ms. Alemu, and Mr. Nega, authorities have also taken into custody Sileshi Hagos, a radio journalist and the fiancé of Ms. Alemu, as well as the Swedish pair, reporter Martin Schibbye and photojournalist Johan Persson. Another journalist, Elias Kilfe, editor of the U.S.-based Ethiopian Review, faces terror charges in absentia.
Prime Minister Zenawi and the EPRDF, in power since 1991 after overthrowing the Marxist dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam, have been on a steady march toward authoritarianism since winning a controversial federal election in 2005. In the months following that poll, government security forces cracked down mercilessly on major demonstrations against perceived vote rigging; over 200 protesters were killed and scores of opposition leaders and journalists imprisoned.
In the lead-up to the 2010 federal elections, the Zenawi administration stepped up its campaign against independent media, forcing the closure of several independent news outlets, including the print version of Addis Neger, and disrupting the service of foreign news outlets such as Deutsche Welle and Voice of America.
IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills said “We are extremely concerned that the Ethiopian government appears to be using the all-too-familiar façade of anti-terrorism legislation to smother critical journalism. If there is evidence to support these charges, it must be presented publicly and the accused must be given a fair trial. Otherwise, all six journalists currently imprisoned must be released immediately and unconditionally.”
