reeyot alemu

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Ethiopian journalist likely held under anti-terrorism law

New York, June 23, 2011–Ethiopian authorities have been holding a newspaper columnist incommunicado since Tuesday, local journalists told the Committee to Protect Journalists. Reeyot Alemu, a regular contributor to the independent weekly Feteh, was expected to spend the next four weeks in preventive detention under what appears to be Ethiopia’s sweeping anti-terrorism law.   Alemu,…

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Woubshet Taye

Police arrested Woubshet Taye, deputy editor of the independent weekly Awramba Times, after raiding his home in the capital, Addis Ababa, and confiscating documents, cameras, CDs, and selected copies of the newspaper, according to local journalists. The outlet’s top editor, Dawit Kebede, fled the country in November 2011 in fear of being arrested, and has…

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China, Egypt imprison record numbers of journalists

Egypt is second only to China as the world’s worst jailer of journalists in 2015. Worldwide, the number of journalists behind bars for their work declined moderately during the year, but a handful of countries continue to use systematic imprisonment to silence criticism. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

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Slideshow: Journalists freed

While just under 200 journalists are behind bars, CPJ witnessed several memorable releases in 2015, including in Vietnam, Ethiopia, and even secretive Eritrea. Some of the journalists had spent years behind bars; they endured isolation and several say they were tortured. This year, CPJ’s advocacy contributed to the release of at least 31 journalists. Some…

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CPJ newsletter: November 2015

Today is #GivingTuesday Please include CPJ in your plans for #GivingTuesday. For more on the work you support, visit our website at www.cpj.org.

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Members of the Zone 9 blogging group. (Endalkachew H/Michael)

CPJ newsletter: October 2015

CPJ advocacy vital in release of imprisoned journalists in Ethiopia

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Zone 9 Bloggers, Ethiopia

In April 2014, Ethiopian authorities arrested six bloggers affiliated with the Zone 9 collective. The bloggers–Abel Wabella, Atnaf Berhane, Mahlet Fantahun, Natnail Feleke, Zelalem Kibret, and Befekadu Hailu–were charged with terrorism. Additional Content Acceptance Speech The Zone 9 blogging collective was formed in May 2012 in response to the evisceration of the independent press and…

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News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, July 2015

CPJ calls Kenya on its “Broken Promises” As U.S. President Barack Obama headed to Kenya and Ethiopia in July, CPJ launched a special report in Nairobi on the climate for press freedom in Kenya. The report, called “Broken promises: How Kenya is failing to uphold its commitment to a free press,” found that a combination…

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Exiled Ethiopian journalists perform a traditional coffee ceremony in a shared, cramped apartment in Nairobi. A wave of arrests prompted at least 30 Ethiopian journalists to flee into exile in 2014.  (CPJ/Nicole Schilit)

Conflating terrorism and journalism in Ethiopia

At the Lideta courthouse in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, stands a statue of a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales in her outstretched hand–a universal symbol of justice, here cast in metal of pinkish gold and wearing thick braids in her hair.

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A woman from the Right2Know campaign protests with her child against the State Information Bill, which would enable the prosecution of whistleblowers, public advocates, and journalists who reveal corruption, in Cape Town on April 25, 2013. (AP/Schalk van Zuydam)

Outdated secrecy laws stifle the press in South Africa

Nelson Mandela regularly harangued the media once he’d been freed after 27 years of imprisonment by South Africa’s apartheid government. He would call individual journalists when he liked or disliked something they had written or when he wanted to advance a political lobby.

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