27 Apr 12 | Africa, Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost
Access to the website of Ethiopia’s leading weekly newspaper has been blocked within the country. The website of privately-owned weekly, The Reporter, has been inaccessible since 21 April, other than through a proxy server. Though the reason for the blocking is unclear, it has been speculated that the block is being carried out by the state-owned company Ethio-Telecom, the only ISP in the country. The site usually has 30,000 visitors per day.
27 Jan 12 | Africa, Index Index, minipost, News and features
Jailed Ethiopian dissident blogger Eskinder Nega will stand trial in March for terrorism charges, a federal high court judge ruled this week. He could face the death penalty if convicted. Nega and five other journalists were last November charged with providing support to Ginbot 7, a banned opposition movement that the government formally designated a terrorist entity under the 2009 anti-terrorism law last year. At this week’s hearing, the judge confirmed all six charges for two of those accused and dismissed all but one charge against three others.
20 Jan 12 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
Two journalists and a US-based blogger (tried in absentia), were convicted on charges of terrorism in Addis Ababa yesterday. They may face the death penalty. Reeyot Alemu, a columnist with the independent weekly Feteh, deputy editor Woubshet Taye of the now-defunct weekly Awramba Times, and Elias Kifle, exiled editor of the Washington-based opposition website Ethiopian Review, were charged with lending support to an underground network of outlawed opposition groups.
27 Dec 11 | Index Index, minipost
An Ethiopian court has sentenced two Swedish journalists to 11 years in prison on charges of supporting terrorism after the pair illegally entered the country with an ethnic Somali rebel group.
Photojournalist Johan Persson and reporter Martin Schibbye were detained by Ethiopian security forces in July while travelling with the outlawed separatist group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, and were put on trial in October. The chairman of the Swedish Union of Journalists, Jonas Nordling, has been reported as saying that the sentence is aimed at deterring journalists from investigating alleged human rights abuses in the tense Ogaden region, adding that there is no evidence to support the pair’s conviction on terror charges.
