Muhiyadin, who publishes reporting and commentary on his Muxiyediin show Facebook page, was arrested by security forces of unknown affiliation from his home in Jigjiga, capital of Ethiopia’s eastern Somali Regional State, according to the Addis Standard independent news website and Abdulrazaq Hassan, chairperson of the Somali Region Journalists Association, a local media rights group.
On March 4, authorities charged Muhiyadin with spreading false news and hate speech, in violation of Ethiopia’s hate speech and disinformation law, according to Abdulrazaq and a copy of the charge sheet reviewed by CPJ. If found guilty, Muhiyadin could face up to five years in prison.
“Officials in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State should stop wasting public resources on prosecuting a journalist whose only crime was criticizing political elites on Facebook,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should release Muhiyadin immediately and drop the criminal case against him. Ethiopian authorities must bring an end to the culture of locking journalists up whenever they don’t like what they are saying.”
Abdulrazaq told CPJ that security personnel held Muhiyadin at an undisclosed location for six days, without charge or explanation, before transferring him on February 19 to the Fafan Zone police station in Jigjiga.
When Muhiyadin appeared in court on February 20, police alleged that he had disseminated false propaganda and were given 10 days to hold him in custody while they carried out further investigations, Abdulrazak said.
Charged with inciting the public
Muhiyadin’s charge sheet said that he incited the public in a Facebook post on February 12 to “stand up against the non-believer whom they closed the roads for.” It did not provide details as to who the “non-believer” referred to or any image of the Facebook post.
CPJ’s review of Muhiyadin’s Facebook page on March 5 found one post criticizing road closures in Jigjiga on February 11, the day before Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s visit. The post said that transport fares had been hiked and the government “should care for the poor members” of society. It did not contain the phrases cited in the charge sheet.
Prior to his arrest, Muhiyadin said on Facebook that he had been threatened for his reporting. On February 2, he said that his coverage would not be “silenced by anyone.” On February 3, he said he planned to leave the Somali Regional State after being threatened by the ruling party and the opposition for criticizing them.
After Muhiyadin’s arrest, a user identifying themselves as the Muxiyediin show’s administrator posted on February 23 that they had met Muhiyadin in prison and he had asked them to continue publishing on the page “to speak for the Somali community.”
Muhiyadin was previously arrested and detained for three days in 2023 after he posted a video on Facebook protesting authorities’ suspension of 15 media outlets in the state, including the U.K.-based broadcaster Kalsan TV, which he was working for as a reporter.
According to the CPJ’s latest annual prison census on December 1, 2023, Ethiopia was the second-worst jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa with eight behind bars. Four of these journalists were detained without charge or trial following the August 4 declaration of a six-month state of emergency in response to conflict in Amhara State.
In February, the state of emergency was extended for four months.
Abdikadir Rashid Duale, head of the Somali Regional State’s communication bureau, which acts as a regional government spokesperson and licenses media outlets, told CPJ via messaging app: “We are deeply sorry about the detention of Mr. Muhiyadin, as he is a citizen with the constitutional right[s] and the human right[s] … but that doesn’t mean that a citizen cannot be questioned about what he/she is doing.”
He referred CPJ’s questions about Muhiyadin’s case to regional security agencies but did not specify which ones.
Ali Abdijabar, a deputy commissioner for police in the Somali Regional State, did not immediately respond to CPJ’s requests for comment via messaging app.
Editor’s note: Shortly after the publication of this alert, deputy police commissioner Ali Abdijabar sent CPJ an undated video in which Muhiyadin was speaking, saying he was “angry and sad” about road closures in Jigjiga during a celebration by “nonbelievers” who are “cursed in the Quran.” The deputy police commissioner did not respond to subsequent messages by CPJ requesting clarification on when and where the video was recorded or published. Abdikadir Awess, a newly-appointed lawyer representing Muhiyadin, told CPJ that authorities had introduced this video as evidence in court. Abdikadir said the journalist did not “incite anyone, and the alleged incitement did not materialize.”
]]>“It is great news that Antoine Galindo has been released, as his unjust detention was a stark reminder of the dangers of practicing journalism in today’s Ethiopia,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “Ethiopian authorities must now release all journalists—eight others at least—who have suffered months of imprisonment under very difficult conditions, and provide guarantees that international journalists will be allowed the access they need to report and will not face retaliation for doing their jobs.”
Ethiopian authorities released Galindo, who reports for the Paris-based privately owned news website Africa Intelligence, on February 29, and he subsequently left the country to return to France, the publisher of Africa Intelligence, Quentin Botbol, told CPJ via messaging app. Further details about his release were not immediately available.
“We thank all the people and organizations who worked towards Galindo’s release,” Botbol said. “We hope that all the other Ethiopian journalists that are being detained in the country can be freed and continue to do their job.”
Security forces arrested Galindo while he interviewed Bate Urgessa, a political officer with the opposition party Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), on February 22 in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
On February 24, a court in Addis Ababa ordered that Galindo and Bate be detained until their next court appearance on March 1, so police could investigate allegations of armed conspiracy.
During a February 28 press briefing, a government spokesperson said Galindo was detained for “overstepping” his accreditation as the journalist was only authorized to cover the summit of the African Union, headquartered in Ethiopia, and not domestic Ethiopian politics, according to news reports.
Galindo’s publisher sent a January 25 letter to the Ethiopia Media Authority and Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting accreditation for 14 days, stating that Galindo would spend a week on the summit meeting, which ended on February 18, and the following week with “politicians and diplomats on topics related to the African Union summit and to Ethiopian affairs,” according to CPJ’s review of the letter.
Galindo was approved for a two-week stay, according to CPJ’s review of the journalist’s on-arrival request form.
With eight journalists behind bars, Ethiopia was the second-worst jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa, according to CPJ’s 2023 annual Prison Census. These journalists, half of whom were arrested following the declaration of a state of emergency in August 2023, remain behind bars.
]]>On February 22, at 3:55 p.m., Galindo, who reports for the Paris-based privately owned news website Africa Intelligence, was detained by security forces in civilian clothing in the capital, Addis Ababa, his publisher Indigo Publications said in a statement and his lawyer, who works for the firm Tameru Wondm Agegnehu, told CPJ by phone.
Galindo was detained at the Ethiopian Skylight Hotel while interviewing Bate Urgessa, a political officer with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a party legally recognized in Ethiopia, his lawyer said.
“The baseless and unjustified detention of Antoine Galindo for carrying out his legitimate journalistic duties is outrageous and Ethiopian authorities must release him immediately without condition,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “Antoine Galindo’s arrest is yet another example of the dismal press freedom record in Ethiopia, where at least another eight journalists are behind bars for their work and who must also be released urgently.”
Following their arrest, Galindo and Bate were taken to the capital’s Bole-Rwanda police station, then to the Bole Sub-City Police Department, where both are currently held, Galindo’s lawyer told CPJ.
On Saturday, Galindo appeared before the Addis Ababa City Administration Bole Division Court on allegations of conspiring with two armed groups to incite unrest in the capital—the OLA-Shene, a term used by Ethiopian officials to refer to the decades-old Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebel group, and the Fano, a militia in Amhara state that has been fighting federal forces since April 2023.
Despite these serious accusations, police have yet to provide substantive evidence or charge Galindo, according to his lawyer.
In court, Galindo asked to be released on bail, but the police said they needed to keep him behind bars to apprehend other suspects who were “complicit” and to access the journalist’s phone records, according to his lawyer, who attended court. The court allowed the police to keep the two men in custody until their next court appearance on March 1, the lawyer said.
Indigo Publications said in its statement that Galindo had been in Ethiopia since February 13 to cover an African Union summit and Ethiopian news, and he had a journalist visa and had informed the government’s Ethiopian Media Authority of his assignment. It said that Galindo was suspected of “conspiracy to create chaos in Ethiopia,” which it described as a “spurious” accusation “not based on any tangible evidence that might justify this extended deprivation of liberty.”
Ethiopia is the second-worst jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa, with at least eight journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, according to CPJ’s latest annual prison census of jailed journalists imprisoned globally. The eight are still jailed, with four of them detained as a result of a state of emergency declared on August 4 in response to the conflict in Amhara state and have never been charged or brought to court.
CPJ’s texts and emails requesting comment on Galindo’s detention from the Ministry of Justice and federal police did not receive any replies.
]]>On November 13, a group of uniformed police officers and other security personnel in civilian clothes arrested Belay in the capital, Addis Ababa, near the offices of Ethio News, a private YouTube-based news outlet, Belay’s wife Belaynesh Nigatu and Ethio News co-founder Belete Kassa told CPJ.
The officers took Belay to the Federal Police Crime Investigation Center, where he remains in detention, without informing him of the reason for his arrest or taking him to court, they said.
“Belay Manaye has spent three weeks behind bars without any explanation from Ethiopian authorities. This sends a grave message to other Ethiopian journalists—that they can be deprived of their liberty at any time,” said CPJ’s sub-Saharan African Representative, Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should unconditionally release Belay Manaye and stop arbitrarily detaining members of the press.”
Belaynesh, who visited her husband in jail, told CPJ that the journalist feared he was being held under legal provisions introduced when a state of emergency was declared on August 4 in response to conflict in the northern Amhara state.
The emergency declaration gives the government additional powers to ban public meetings, declare a curfew, shut down mass media, and detain people suspected of crimes against the state in order to “maintain public peace and order” in response to “the armed illegal activities of the Amhara National Regional Government.”
The Fano militia in Amhara have been fighting federal forces since April, after the federal government announced a controversial decision to integrate regional militia into the federal army. The Fano were previously allied with the federal government in a civil war in northern Ethiopia that ended with a peace deal in November 2022.
The state of emergency law, reviewed by CPJ, gives security personnel wide powers of arrest and suspends the due process of law, including the right to appear before a court and receive legal counsel. Ordinarily, Article 19 of Ethiopia’s constitution requires police to produce detained persons in court within 48 hours.
Belay and Ethio News co-founder Belete co-host two daily news programs on the channel and had extensively covered the conflict in the Amhara state.
In the weeks following the declaration of the state of emergency, CPJ documented the arrest of at least seven other journalists who had covered the Amhara conflict.
This is not Belay’s first detention. In July 2020, authorities arrested Belay, two of his colleagues, and one ex-colleague from the Amhara Satellite Radio And Television (ASRAT) on allegations of inciting violence. After 46 days, Belay was released on bail without charge, according to his post on X, formerly Twitter, and the Addis Standard.
In an emailed statement, federal police spokesperson Jeylan Abdi said he could not comment on the detention of Belay and other journalists under the state of emergency and referred CPJ to the command post, which was established to oversee the state of emergency.
CPJ’s queries via email and messaging app to the federal ministry of justice, and government spokesperson Legesse Tulu, who is a member of the state of emergency command post and has issued statements on behalf of the body, did not receive any responses.
]]>Ulate had taken over the case in August 2022 from two other lawyers, Romeo Montoya García and Mario Castañeda, after the prosecutor in Zamora’s case announced that they were under investigation. After less than three months of representing Zamora, Ulate left Guatemala for a trip to Honduras. The attacks, he said, stopped abruptly.
Looking back, Ulate believes the harassment was part of a clear pattern. Other lawyers who would go on to represent Zamora — there were 10 in total by the time of the journalist’s June conviction on money laundering charges widely considered to be retaliation for his work — were harassed, investigated, or even jailed.
“We knew that the system was against us, and that everything we, the legal team, did around the case was being closely scrutinized,” Ulate told CPJ.
Zamora’s experience retaining legal counsel, while extreme, is hardly unique. CPJ has identified lawyers of journalists under threat in Iran, China, Belarus, Turkey, and Egypt, countries that are among the world’s worst jailers of journalists. To be sure, lawyers are not just targeted for representing journalists. “Globally lawyers are increasingly criminalized or disciplined for taking on sensitive cases or speaking publicly on rule of law, human rights, and good governance issues,” said Ginna Anderson, the associate director of the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights, which monitors global conditions for legal professionals.
But lawyers and human rights advocates told CPJ that when a lawyer is harassed for representing a journalist, the threats can have chilling effects on the free flow of information. Inevitably, journalists unable to defend themselves against retaliatory charges are more likely to be jailed – leaving citizens less likely to be informed of matters of public interest.
Attacks on the legal profession – like attacks on journalists – can be a barometer of civil liberties in a country, legal experts told CPJ. Hong Kong, once viewed as a safe harbor for independent journalists, is one such example. The territory has seen multiple members of the press prosecuted under Beijing’s 2020 national security law, including media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, who faces life imprisonment. Lai, a British citizen, is represented by both U.K. and Hong Kong legal teams, which work independently of each other, and both have faced pressure.
Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the head of the U.K. team, has spoken openly on X, formerly Twitter, about attacks on Lai’s U.K.-based lawyers, from smears in the Chinese state press to formal statements by Hong Kong authorities. Gallagher has faced death threats, attempts to access her bank and email accounts, and efforts to impersonate her online. “That stuff is quite draining and attritional and designed to eat into your time. They want to make it too much hassle to continue the case,” Gallagher told the Irish Times.
The Hong Kong legal team representing Lai — who has been convicted of fraud and is on trial for foreign collusion — has also appeared to have come under pressure from authorities. After Lai’s U.K. lawyers angered Beijing by discussing Lai’s case with a British minister, the Hong Kong legal team issued a statement distancing itself from the U.K. lawyers.
Any appearance of working with foreigners could compromise not only Lai’s case but also the standing of his lawyers, said Doreen Weisenhaus, a media law expert at Northwestern University who previously taught at the University of Hong Kong.
“They have to appreciate the potential harm that they could face moving forward — that they could become targeted — as they try to vigorously represent Jimmy Lai,” she told CPJ.
CPJ reached out to Robertsons, the Hong Kong legal firm representing Lai, via the firm’s online portal and did not receive a reply.
Moves to isolate and intimidate lawyers working on Lai’s case are part of a larger crackdown over the last decade, including China’s 2015 roundup of 300 lawyers and civil society members. “In many ways, China institutionalized wholesale campaigns of going after journalists, activists, and now lawyers,” said Weisenhaus.
In Iran – another country where the judiciary operates largely at the government’s behest – lawyers representing journalists have been targeted in the wake of the 2022 nationwide protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in morality police custody. Those protests saw the arrests of thousands of demonstrators and dozens of journalists, including Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who helped break the story of Amini’s hospitalization. The two reporters are accused of spying for the United States; the two remain in custody while awaiting the verdict in their closed-door trials.
Hamedi and Mohammadi’s lawyer, Mohammed Ali Kamfiroozi, who also represented human rights defenders, received warnings to dissuade him from continuing his work: phone calls from unlisted numbers, threats in the mail, ominous messages to his family, and an official letter from authorities telling him to stop his work, according to CPJ’s sources inside the country. Nevertheless, Kamfiroozi continued his work, publishing regular updates about his clients’ cases on X until he, too, was arrested on December 15, 2022 while inquiring at a courthouse about a client.
Kamfiroozi’s last post on X before his arrest lamented the state of Iran’s judiciary: “This level of disregard for explicit and obvious legal standards is regrettable.”
Kamfiroozi was released from Fashafouyeh prison after 25 days in detention and has not returned to his work as a lawyer, according to CPJ’s sources inside the country. A new legal team has since taken over the journalists’ cases. Since then, the crackdown on the legal profession has continued, with lawyers being summoned by the judiciary to sign a form stating they will not publicly release information about clients facing national security charges – a common accusation facing journalists. Lawyers who fail to sign can be disbarred and arrested at the discretion of local judges.
Belarusian lawyers have also been muzzled in the wake of nationwide protests. After widespread demonstrations following the disputed August 2020 presidential election — during which dozens of journalists were arrested — Belarusian lawyers were forced to sign nondisclosure agreements preventing them from speaking publicly about many criminal cases. At least 56 lawyers representing human rights defenders or opposition leaders were disbarred or had their licenses revoked in the two years after the protests, and some were jailed, according to the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Initiative, the American Bar Association, and the group Lawyers for Lawyers.
Belarusian lawyer Siarhej Zikratski, whose clients included the now-shuttered independent news outlet Tut.by, imprisoned Belsat TV journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva, and program director of Press Club Belarus Alla Sharko, was required to undergo a recertification exam which ultimately resulted in authorities revoking his license. He fled the country in May 2021 after he was disbarred and amid ongoing pressure from the government on his colleagues.
In the months after he left, Tut.by was banned in Belarus and Andreyeva, who was nearing the end of a two-year imprisonment, was sentenced to another eight years on retaliatory charges. (Sharko was released in August 2021 after serving eight months.)
“They took away my beloved profession and my business,” Zikratski wrote in a Facebook post announcing his emigration to Vilnius, Lithuania. “I will continue to do everything I can to change the situation in Belarus. Unfortunately, I cannot do that from Minsk.”
While exile is not an uncommon choice to escape state harassment, it comes at a cost: lawyers are unable to continue their work in their home countries.
“The bulk of the harassment against media and human rights lawyers, including criminal defense lawyers who represent journalists and other human rights defenders [occurs] in-country,” said Anderson of the ABA. “Increasingly this is forcing lawyers into exile where they face enormous challenges continuing to practice or participate in media rights advocacy.”
This was the case for Ethiopian human rights lawyer Tadele Gebremedhin, who faced intense harassment from local authorities after he began defending reporters covering the country’s civil conflict in the Tigray region that began in November 2020.
Gebremedhin represented freelance journalists Amir Aman Kiyaro and Thomas Engida, Ethio Forum journalists Abebe Bayu and Yayesew Shimelis, Awramba Times managing editor Dawit Kebede, and at least a dozen others, including the staff of the independent now-defunct broadcaster Awlo Media Center, whose charges are related to their reporting on the Tigray region.
Gebremedhin told CPJ that the harassment started in May 2021 with thinly veiled threats from government officials and anonymous calls telling him not to represent journalists because members of the media are terrorists. He strongly suspected that he was under physical and digital surveillance, and his bank account was blocked. In November 2021, he was detained by authorities and held for 66 days without charge before being released.
“That was my payment for working with the journalists,” Gebremedhin said.
He fled to the United States shortly after his release from police custody, and now works as a researcher at the University of Minnesota Law School Human Rights Center. Just a few of the dozens of reporters he defended are still working in journalism. While they are not behind bars, the damage done to civil society remains, Gebremedhin said.
Sometimes, lawyers are arrested alongside the journalists they represent. In the runup to Turkey’s May 2023 presidential elections, Turkish lawyer Resul Temur was taken into government custody in Diyarbakır province for his alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkish authorities consider a terrorist organization, along with several Kurdish journalists who were also his clients.
Authorities took his work phone, computer, and all of his electronic devices, including his 9-year old daughter’s tablet, and all of the paper case files he had in his office, Temur told CPJ. He was released pending investigation, and fears he’ll soon be charged.
“Lawyers like me who are not deterred by judicial harassment will continue to be the targets of Turkish authorities,” he said.
In Egypt, a country where numerous human rights defenders have been locked up, Mohamed el-Baker, the lawyer of prominent blogger and activist Alaa Abdelfattah, was arrested as he accompanied Abdelfattah to police questioning in September 2019. Authorities charged both with spreading false news and supporting a banned group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
After serving nearly four years of his sentence and amid growing international pressure, el-Baker was granted a presidential pardon in July. However, it remains unclear if the lawyer will be allowed to return to work. Many of his clients, Abdelfattah among them, remain in prison.
The damage, from Egypt to Turkey to Guatemala and beyond, is great. When lawyers for reporters fear retaliation as much as the journalists do, it creates an environment of censorship that harms citizens’ ability to stay informed about what is happening in their countries.
“When journalists can’t have access to lawyers, they’re kind of left on their own,” Weisenhaus told CPJ. “I think we’ll still see courageous journalists who will continue to write about what they perceive as the wrongs in their country and their society. But those numbers could dwindle if they’re constantly being prosecuted and convicted.”
Additional research contributed by Dánae Vílchez, Özgür Öğret, and CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program staff.
Editor’s note: Ginna Anderson’s title has been updated in the fifth paragraph.
]]>On August 26, 2023, police arrested Tewodros Zerfu, a presenter and program host with the online media outlets Yegna TV and Menelik Television, while he was chatting with a friend at a cafe in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, according to reports from the outlets and accounts from his sister Seblework Zerfu and Yegna TV founder Engidawork Gebeyehu, who spoke to CPJ by messaging app.
Four days later, on August 30, two security officers in civilian clothing arrested Nigussie Berhanu, a political analyst and co-host of, “Yegna Forum,” a biweekly political show on Yegna TV, according to Yegna TV reports, Engidawork, and a family member who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns.
On September 11, seven federal police officers arrested Yehualashet Zerihun, the program director of the privately owned station Tirita 97.6 FM, at his residence in Addis Ababa, according to a report by Tirita and Yehualashet‘s wife Meron Jembere, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. Meron said she had not been given any specific reason for his arrest to date.
The three journalists were initially detained at the Federal Police Crime Investigation Center in the capital of Addis Ababa, but have since been transferred to a temporary detention center at a military camp in Awash Arba, a town in Afar State that is about 240 miles (145 kilometers) east of Addis Ababa, according to the people who spoke to CPJ. Those sources said they were not aware of the journalists being presented in court or formally charged with a crime.
“The detention of journalists at a military camp, under unclear judicial oversight, is a deeply worrying sign of the depths to which Ethiopia’s regard for the media has sunk,” said CPJ sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should release journalists Tewodros Zerfu, Yehualashet Zerihun, and Nigussie Berhanu, as well as other members of the press detained for their work.”
Ethiopia declared a six-month state of emergency on August 4, 2023, in response to the conflict in northern Amhara state involving federal government forces and the Fano, an armed militia, according to media reports. Since then, CPJ has documented the detention of at least four other journalists in Addis Ababa, two of whom remain detained, also in Awash Arba.
The state of emergency legislation gives security personnel sweeping powers of arrest and permits the suspension of due process of law, including the right to appear before a court and receive legal counsel.
In addition to his role as a program director, Yehualashet was a host and co-host of three weekly radio shows, “Negere Kin,” “Semonegna,” and “Feta Bekidame,” focusing on art and social issues.
According to CPJ’s review of their work, Tewodros and Nigussie usually appeared together on Yegna TV’s regular program, “Yegna’s Forum,” and their commentary and reporting is published on Yegna TV’s YouTube channel, which has over 600,000 subscribers. Yegna Forum is a mostly political program, which has been critical of the Ethiopian government. Prior to their detention, they had discussed the ongoing Amhara conflict, criticizing the passing of the state of emergency decree, and questioning the neutrality of the Ethiopian National Defense Force.
A few days before his detention, Nigussie made a Facebook post in which he alleged that he was “perceived as a threat” to the government, and had been “identified as a target.”
CPJ’s queries sent via email to federal police spokesperson Jeylan Abdi and the office of the federal minister of justice were unanswered. Government spokesperson Legesse Tulu did not respond to queries sent via messaging app and text message.
]]>On September 7, security officers in Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray Region, beat and arrested Teshager Tsigab, a reporter with the online news outlet Yabele Media, and Mehari Kahsay and Mehari Selemon, co-founders and reporters with Ayam Media, while they were covering an opposition protest, according to media reports and the three journalists, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
Mehari Kahsay and Mehari Selemon told CPJ they were released on bail on September 9. They said officials accused them of participating in an illegal protest but did not formally charge them in court. Authorities did not level any specific allegations against Teshager, or formally charge him in court before releasing him on bail on September 11.
“The beating and detention of these three journalists sends a chilling message that authorities in Tigray are unwilling to make room for reporters to cover critical subjects,” said CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. “The Tigray interim regional administration must investigate this incident, hold the officers responsible to account, and guarantee that the press can report on opposition protests and dissenting voices without retaliation.”
Ethiopia appointed the interim administration in March as part of a November 2022 peace deal that ended two years of conflict between the federal government and rebels led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front party.
Three opposition parties planned to hold a demonstration in Mekelle’s Romanat Square but authorities said it was not authorized and police dispersed the crowd with beatings and arrested more than 20 people, according to media reports.
The three journalists said they were separately filming the protesters when they were confronted by groups of men in police uniform who ordered them to stop and beat them with sticks and electric cables.
Teshager told CPJ that he ran to a nearby café, but the officers found him there, beat him until he briefly lost consciousness, and took him to Mekelle’s Semien Sub-City police station. Teshager said he had blurred vision and vomited after the beating and sustained wounds to his head, back, and legs.
Mehari Selemon and Mehari Kahsay said they initially escaped but men in police uniforms confronted them while they were having breakfast in a different café later that morning, beat them, and forced them to walk barefoot to a patrol vehicle about 10 minutes away in Romanat Square. They were also detained at the Semien Sub-City police station.
Mehari Selemon told CPJ that he sustained a nosebleed and a headache and had body aches. Mehari Kahsay shared images with CPJ of deep bruises and swelling on his legs, shoulders, and back, which he said resulted from the beatings, and said his head was also swollen.
Teshager said the police took him to a hospital on September 7, where he was given painkillers, and again on September 8, when he was examined by a doctor and given an x-ray at a different hospital. Teshager told CPJ that he did not see the results of the medical examination, which were shared with the police, who told him that he was fine.
Mehari Selemon and Mehari Kahsay said they were given painkillers when they were taken to a hospital on September 8.
The U.S. Congress-funded Voice of America and German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported that security personnel in military and civilian clothes harassed reporters working for their outlets, as well as local media. The outlets did not name the journalists.
One person who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns, said the police told them to stop filming the protest and tried to forcefully delete their footage. Private security guards were also involved in the attacks, that person said.
Press freedom violations escalated in Ethiopia during the 2020-2022 civil war when numerous journalists were arrested and detained for weeks without formal charges.
CPJ’s queries to the communication office of the Tigray interim administration via email and Facebook and to the head of the interim administration, Getachew Reda, via X, formerly known as Twitter, did not receive any replies.
]]>Abay Zewdu, chief editor of the YouTube-based broadcaster Amara Media Center (AMC), was arrested in the capital Addis Ababa on August 10 and transferred to Awash Arba military facility on August 21, according to a report by the online outlet Roha Media, a statement by the statutory watchdog Ethiopia Human Rights Commission (ERHC), and his sister Zoma Zewdu.
Federal police officers did not tell Abay why they were arresting him, he did not go to court, and at the time of publication he remained in the Afar state military camp’s temporary detention center in Awash Arba town, some 240 kilometers (145 miles) east of Addis Ababa, according to Zoma and AMC board member Aregahagn Negatu, both of whom spoke to CPJ.
Yidnekachew Kebede, founder and editor of YouTube-based outlet Negari TV, was arrested on August 17 and appeared in court in Addis Ababa’s Ketema Sub-City on August 21, where the police accused him of aiding “anti-peace elements” and producing video content “with the intent of provoking violence,” his lawyer Henok Aklilu told CPJ. On September 1, Yidnekachew returned to court and was released on bail of 6,000 birr (US$108) without charge, Henok said.
Fekadu Mahtemework, editor-in-chief of the weekly Ghion magazine, was detained by police in Addis Ababa on August 25 under the state of emergency decree and told that he would not be taken to court, according to media reports and his wife, Hiwot Hailegebriel. Hiwot told CPJ that Fekadu was released without charge on Monday, September 4.
Ethiopia declared a six-month state of emergency on August 4 in response to conflict in northern Amhara state between government forces and the Fano, an armed militia. The state of emergency law, reviewed by CPJ, grants security personnel wide powers of arrest and provides for the suspension of the due process of law, including the right to appear before a court and receive legal counsel.
All three journalists published reporting or commentary on the conflict in Amhara and the state of emergency, according to CPJ’s review.
“Once again, Ethiopian authorities are targeting journalists precisely when the public needs access to diverse reporting and commentary on an ongoing conflict,” said CPJ Sub-Saharan Africa Representative Muthoki Mumo. “Ethiopian authorities should release all journalists detained for their work and guarantee that the state of emergency in Amhara will not be used to stifle the media.”
Prior to Abay’s detention, AMC had extensively covered the Amhara crisis, including a report in which he described it as a freedom struggle, various interviews with civilians in Amhara state about the impact of the fighting, and interviews with Fano militiamen.
Yidnekachew had published posts on Facebook criticizing the emergency declaration and decrying detention of political activists and civilians. The most recent video published by Yidnekachew’s outlet, Negari TV, included an interview with Abay in which they discussed the persecution of ethnic Amharas and the government’s failure to protect civilians.
Fekadu’s magazine Ghion published news stories on YouTube and in its weekly print edition about the state of emergency decree and mass arrests in Addis Ababa and surrounding areas.
Over the last four years, Ethiopian journalists have frequently been arrested, particularly during periods of political tension or conflict. Abay was previously detained in September 2022 and in April 2023 and released on bail. Fekadu was jailed for about five months before being granted amnesty in 2020.
Federal police spokesperson Jeylan Abdi did not immediately respond to CPJ’s requests for comment via email and messaging app.
Editor’s note: This text has been updated in the second paragraph to reflect the outlet’s decision to change its name to Amara Media Center.
]]>On Sunday, August 6, at approximately 2 p.m., three uniformed police officers and two other people in civilian clothes arrested Bekalu at his home in the capital city of Addis Ababa, according to a report by independent news website Ethiopia Insider, an Alpha Media report and a person familiar with his case who spoke to CPJ by phone and asked not to be named due to safety concerns.
The following morning police searched Bekalu’s house and confiscated his laptop, CDs and USB flash drives.
“During times of conflict and emergencies, the Ethiopian government’s apparent default position is to silence critical journalism by targeting independent voices based on vague allegations,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “Bekalu Alamrew and all fellow journalists currently detained for their reporting and commentary must be unconditionally released and allowed to work freely without legal harassment and censorship.”
The person familiar with the case said Bekalu had not appeared in court within 48 hours of his detention nor been informed of the reason he was being held – a legal requirement under Article 19 of Ethiopia’s constitution – and was being held at the Federal Police Crime Investigation Main Department.
Prior to his arrest Bekalu extensively covered the ongoing violent confrontation in Amhara state between government forces and Fano, an armed militia operating within the state. This conflict resulted in the declaration of a six-month-long state of emergency and an ongoing internet shutdown in the region.
According to CPJ’s review, the state of emergency proclamation grants expanded powers to the State of Emergency Command Post, enabling it to order the closure, termination, revocation of licenses, or restriction of activities of any media organization or entity suspected of acting against the objectives outlined in the decree.
Bekalu has been arrested several times previously and released without charges. He was arrested in November 2020 on charges of disseminating false information, again in June 2021 when he was held for more than six weeks without access to family or legal representation, and once more in June 2022 on accusations of incitement to violence through media appearances, as documented by CPJ and news reports.
In Ethiopia, several journalists who were detained in April continue to remain in custody after authorities pressed terrorism charges.
Federal police spokesman Jeylan Abdi did not reply to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via email and messaging app.
]]>On July 30, a dozen men dressed in civilian clothes repeatedly punched and yanked the clothing of Kuzikesa, a presenter and general manager of privately owned CML13TV, and N’lemvo, a reporter with the privately owned news site Actualité.cd, in the Ethiopian capital’s Bole International Airport, according to N’lemvo, who spoke to CPJ, and a statement by a Congolese media rights group.
N’lemvo told CPJ that the men identified themselves as members of a Congolese police unit responsible for the protection of senior state officials while punching Kuzikesa, and said that the CML13TV journalist was too critical of President Felix Tshisekedi.
“The DRC police officers responsible for attacking journalists Louis France Kuzikesa and Will Claes N’lemvo in Addis Ababa’s airport should be identified and held accountable,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in Durban, South Africa. “This unprovoked assault demonstrates just how far Congolese authorities will go to intimidate those deemed critical of the government, both within and beyond DRC’s borders.”
Kuzikesa—who presents a political talk show called “Libre Opinion” (Free Debate)—declined to speak with CPJ, citing safety fears.
Kuzikesa said on Facebook that he was in transit to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, when the men, who identified themselves as security officers for Tshisekedi, attacked him and snatched his two phones and hand luggage.
N’lemvo told CPJ that he started filming the incident on his phone but the men grabbed the device and started punching him as well. Kuzikesa posted N’lemo’s video on X, formerly Twitter, showing a group of men shouting at the CML13TV journalist in the airport.
N’lemvo said Ethiopian police intervened to stop the violence and returned his phone, but the assailants continued to shout that they would find the journalists in Kinshasa.
N’lemvo said the reporters delayed their flight home by a day because they feared for their safety, adding that he received treatment in a Kinshasa hospital for pain in his mouth and chest from the beating, while Kuzikesa was unharmed.
On May 22, DRC’s media regulator, Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel et de la Communication (CSAC), banned Kuzikesa from working as a journalist for 72 days and ordered a 45-day suspension of CML13TV’s broadcast signal. CSAC said in a statement, reviewed by CPJ and reported on by local media, that Kuzikesa interviewed two politicians who made tribal remarks that threatened national cohesion.
CPJ’s calls to Kinshasa police chief Blaise Kilimbalimba rang unanswered.
CPJ has repeatedly documented how journalists in the DRC have been arrested, accused of alleged crimes—including defamation and sharing false information—and criminally prosecuted in connection with their work.
CPJ has called for politicians in the DRC and their supporters to respect journalists’ rights to report freely and safely in the lead-up to national elections on December 20, as previous polls have been marred by press freedom violations. At least seven journalists reporting on political candidates were assaulted in three separate incidents in late July.
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