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CPJ and Amnesty Blast Zenawi and Ethiopian Government Over Sentencing of Swedish Journalists

Ethiopia and Eritrea raely have things in common but this week they now rank 1 and 2 as Africa’s worst jailers of journalists. In a move that many observers have called politically motivated an Ethiopian Court has handed down an 11-year sentence to two free-lance Swedish journalists, Johann Personn (left, below) and Martin Schibbye, who are accused of illegally entering the country to report from the highly sensitive, Somali speaking region of Ogaden. In a special report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ accuses the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenewi of making accusatory statements in the state-controlled media which may have pre-determined the guilty verdict and by trying to imply that the journalists were supporting the Ogaden National Liberia Front which the Ethiopian government considers to be a terrorist organization.

So far the international diplomatic response has only been only a statement of “serious concern” on the part of the European Union but CPJ, Amnesty International and Reporters without Borders say that the pair should be released immediately and unconditionally and that Ethiopia should respect press freedom and not try to use ant-terrorist legislation for muting all sensitive reporting.CPJ  and Amnesty Blast Zenawi and Ethiopian Government Over Sentencing of Swedish Journalists

 

Author

Michael Keating

I am the Director of Operations at the Center for Peace, Development and Democracy at the University of Massachusetts Boston. I also lecture in the graduate program in International Relations. I have spent much of the past decade looking, learning and hopefully contributing in West Africa, most deeply in Liberia. My interests are in the areas of economic development, political leadership, media and higher education. In a former life I was a Partner with the Boston Consulting Group and an executive with Bertelsmann. I can be reached at [email protected]