ETHIOPIA

As a result of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government’s deliberate campaign to restrict press freedom, Ethiopia succeeded, for the fourth consecutive year, in imprisoning more journalists than any other country in sub-Sahara Africa. The state targeted the print media, and by year’s end four editors of the Amharic daily newspaper and weekly magazine Tobia had suffered arrest and detention without charge. The judicial system was complicit in press freedom violations, grant-ing the state the right to detain journalists without charge while investigating them.

Using a barrage of charges including defamation, incitement of ethnic conflict, and publishing and distributing false or potentially dangerous information, journalists are regularly harassed, censored, arrested, and illegally detained for weeks, or months, without charge or trial. Those who were tried and convicted under the country’s often-contradictory press laws faced exorbitant fines and prison sentences of up to two years. Several independent newspapers have folded under the weight of excessive fines, and journalists have gone into hiding or fled the country to avoid persecution. Despite government efforts to silence the print media, 74 private newspapers and magazines continue to publish, although some appear irregularly.

In March 1996, CPJ delegates went to Ethiopia to research press freedom issues and meet with government officials and members of the press. (For a more comprehensive discussion of CPJ’s findings in Ethiopia, see “Clampdown in Addis: Ethiopia’s Journalists at Risk,” p.81.) Despite indications that the Parliament would review the country’s repressive press law, press freedom violations have not abated. Promises to open the airwaves to private investors have not materialized and the broadcast media remain under government control.

For more information contact africaweb@cpj.org