On April 23, 2025, police in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali Region arrested Jigjiga Television Network founder Ahmed Abdi Omar, who also goes by Ahmed Awga, according to a relative of the journalist who declined to be named, citing safety concerns. Ahmed was arrested in connection with an interview he had done with a man whose son had died following an alleged police beating, as well as for commentary on his own Facebook page.
On May 22, the Fafen Zone High Court in Jigjiga, the state capital, sentenced Ahmed to two years in prison following his conviction on charges of “propagation of disinformation and public incitement” under Ethiopia’s 2020 anti-hate speech law, according to media reports and a copy of the charge sheet, which was reviewed by CPJ.
His conviction was based not on his interview with the father of the deceased child but on other, unrelated Facebook posts that he didn’t write. The charge sheet reviewed by CPJ alleged that on April 17, Ahmed posted statements on his Facebook page that described a regional election as a “so-called election,” accused regional government officials of holding the population hostage, and claimed specific districts were seized by particular people. The charge sheet further alleged that he had stated, “We have no justice — only killing and death.”
The prosecution attached screenshots of Facebook posts as evidence, which, according to CPJ’s review, corroborated by an analysis by the online media outlet VOSS TV, showed that none of Ahmed’s April 17 posts appeared to reference the allegations in the charge sheet and that he had been merely tagged in one of the Facebook posts presented as part of the evidence. The post was published on April 20 and clearly originated from another Facebook account.
On May 27, Somali Regional State President Mustafa Mohammed Omar told the BBC Somali Service that people are not being jailed in the Somali region for their online posts. Asked about Ahmed and three other people in custody at the time — a former official and two activists —Mustafa said they had been charged with "harming the reputation of security agencies, spreading false information about jail conditions, and exploiting the death of an inmate to incite the public." Mustafa added that he would "consider a presidential pardon when the time is right."
On August 26, Ahmed was released from prison after his sentence was set aside under unclear circumstances.