Tefera, editor in chief of Ethiopis, was arrested in November 1993 and sentenced in late March 1994 to two years in prison for “inciting people against the government” and spreading “false rumors.” The charges stemmed from an article about ethnic conflict in the Gondar region and an editorial entitled “The President Pretends Everything is O.K.” In late June, Tefera was given an additional 18-month suspended sentence for having published an editorial entitled “Fascism in Tigray” and an article about conflict in western Ethiopia. An appeal to the Supreme Court was pending at the end of 1994.
