Security forces in Axum, a city in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, arrested Bereket Teklegerima and Ermias Gebrekidan, camera operators with the privately owned Tigray Broadcasting Services (TBS), according to the outlet’s managing director, Abel Guesh, who spoke to CPJ by phone, and news reports. The journalists had gone to the city to report on complaints of poor governance as part of TBS’s “Let Our Voice Be Heard” campaign program and were arrested while filming near Axum’s central market, Abel said.
In a statement the same day, TBS called the arrests “a clear attack on freedom of expression.” Hours later, the ruling political party in the region confirmed the detentions in a Facebook post attributed to the local office of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The post accused the journalists of lacking proper authorization. The local TPLF office said the journalists had been sent to “create chaos” and accused TBS of trying to destabilize the region.
Regional authorities held the journalists for three days without formal charges, Abel said. They were released unconditionally on June 9. CPJ did not receive responses to July 2025 requests for comment sent via email to the TPLP and to the Tigray Communications Affairs Bureau.