Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MEDIA
In many ways Ethiopia is heading squarely in the right direction, but one sphere where
things are taking a decided turn for the worse is in the freedom of media.
When the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) first came to
power the severe restrictions placed on the media by the Derg regime, and before that the
imperial regime, were largely lifted and the press given more freedom than it had ever
really had before. However, this change of fortunes was not to last.
After the May 2005 elections, the EU had harsh criticism of the state-owned media for
regularly releasing unofficial results that highlighted the government's victories and virtu-
ally ignoring the victories of opposition parties. They blasted state-owned Radio Ethiopia
and Ethiopian TV for 'completely ignoring' the press conferences and important statements
given by opposition parties, information that CNN and the BBC thought newsworthy.
Since 1992, when the Press Law came into effect, numerous journalists have been arres-
ted without trial for publishing critical articles of the government. The editor of
Agere
died
untried in prison in 1998. Several owners of private media were arrested and their newspa-
pers shut down during the post-electoral violence in 2005.
More recently the situation for journalists has gotten worse. An anti-terrorism law, intro-
duced in 2009, has been used to harass and jail journalists and editors who have published
antigovernment articles. According to Journalists Without Borders, in 2011 four journalists,
including two Swedes, were given lengthy prison terms for 'terrorist activities'. Under
pressure the Swedes were released in 2012. In mid-2012 award-winning Ethiopian journal-
ist Eskinder Nega was imprisoned for 18 years after writing a column questioning the arrest
of journalists.
The censorship and repression doesn't stop with print media. Opposition websites and
websites criticising the government are frequently blocked, and in early 2012 the govern-
ment even went as far as making the use of Skype and other VoIP software illegal on 'na-
tional security grounds' with possible prison sentences of up to 15 years. Such an uproar
followed that the government later backed down on this.
