Veteran Ethiopian journalist Ezedin Mohamed, editor of Islamic paper Al Quds, was sentenced to one year in jail on the 30 January. According to CPJ, the sentence relates to Mohamed’s response to a 2008 Guardian interview with Meles Zenawi; Mohamad criticised the Prime Minister’s characterisation of the country as Orthodox Christian. Ezedin Mohamed and Al-Quds Publisher Maria Kadim were previously jailed for two weeks in 2008, alongside Ibrahim Mohamed Ali, editor of another Islamic weekly Selafiyya for reporting on a government proposal to restrict the use of headscarves for Muslim girls in public schools.

Ethiopia’s record on press freedom remains poor, Ali and Asrat Wedajo, editor of the country’s largest Oromo language paper Seife Nebelbal before it was shut down in 2005, were subsequently sentenced to one year in prison in September 2009 for ‘coverage of sensitive topics’ (CPJ). . Two Eritrean journalists, Saleh Idris Gama and Tesfalidet Kidane Tesfazghi, have also been detained without charge since they were captured in Somalia ‘on suspicion of terrorism’; the Ethiopian government has repeatedly declined to provide any information about the location, health or legal status of the two men.