Ethiopia

Since 2001, CPJ has documented the cases of 340 journalists forced into exile after their reporting exposed them to harassment, violence, or imprisonment. They face many difficulties in their new homes, from language and cultural adjustments to emotional and economic hardships. Here are five snapshots of journalists in exile.

The Web site EurasiaNet has an article today looking at concerns surrounding the shutdown of foreign radio broadcasts in Azerbaijan. We released an alert on this troubling development on November 3, expressing concern at plans by President Ilham Aliyev's administration to discontinue the broadcasts of the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Voice of America.

New York, November 4, 2008--CPJ calls on Ethiopian authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into Friday's beating of newspaper editor Amare Aregawi.

New York, November 3, 2008--An Ethiopian Federal High Court judge convicted an editor today on criminal charges of "inciting the public through false rumors" over a reporting mistake, local journalists told CPJ.

New York, October 23, 2008--An Ethiopian editor is facing criminal charges today because she accidentally misidentified a judge in a high-profile trial, according to local journalists. Two other journalists have been in police custody since Monday because of the same story.

September 2008

Reliable sources in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa have informed CPJ this week that our site was inaccessible on the servers of the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation, the country's official Internet service provider. A handful of separate Internet users in the country have independently confirmed seeing "The page cannot be displayed" messages when attempting to access our site. The same sources have reported that e-mails they have tried to send to CPJ have not gone through.

New York, August 26, 2008—The Committee to Protect journalists calls for the immediate release of Amare Aregawi, managing editor of the English- and Amharic-language newspaper Reporter, whohas been detained since August 22 in northern Ethiopia.

Policemen from Ethiopia’s former capital of Gonder arrested Aregawi at his office in the capital, Addis Ababa, at 2 p.m. local time on August 22, according to defense lawyer Abdu Ali. Aregawi was held overnight in an Addis Ababa police station before being transferred some 260 miles (415 kilometers) north to Gonder, he said.

Feleke Tibebu, deputy editor of private Ethiopian newspaper Hadar, was arrested in a 2005 government-led crackdown on dissidents and the private media. Tibebu (right) and 13 other journalists were charged with "outrages against the constitution or constitutional order," "impairment of the defensive power of the state," and "attempted genocide," after the publication of editorials critical of the government's conduct surrounding the May 2005 parliamentary elections. According to international news reports at the time, more than 190 people were killed when the government crushed post-election protests after the opposition contested the victory of the ruling party.

After nearly 17 months in prison, Tibebu and seven other journalists were acquitted and released in April 2007. Facing more harassment, he fled to Kenya later that year where he waited for more than a year for approval of his resettlement petition and visa to travel to the U.S. On August 16, Tibebu arrived in Virginia, where he has extended family.

Merid Estifanos was still in his afternoon French class when I arrived at the Maison des Journalistes (MDJ) this afternoon to meet him. I was greeted instead by Maison's director, Philippe Spinau, who gave me the grand tour of the house that has been home to many journalists who, like Estifanos, were forced into exile for their work.