On April 26th, an official from the Ethiopian attorney general’s office took to state media to lament what he called a lack of police action in clamping down on disinformation and hate speech. A number of journalists in the country saw that as a bad omen. “When I heard the call, I knew a crackdown on the press was imminent,” an Addis Ababa-based journalist told Al Jazeera on the condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted. “I had already heard rumors that the government was keen on reining in the press, especially producers of digital content. The only question now was how many of us would be jailed.” That prediction has proven to be accurate. By April 29th, the state-run Ethiopian Media Authority announced that it had filed criminal cases against at least 25 media outlets. Then, during the course of this month, Ethiopian police pounced on local newsrooms, detaining 19 people, including journalists, magazine editors, and talk show hosts.
“We reiterate that Ethiopia’s media law clearly prohibits pre-trial detention for any alleged offense committed through media,” said Daniel Bekele, head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, a public institution. “All detained media personnel should be released.” In addition, The Economist correspondent Tom Gardner was expelled from the country on May 13th. At least a dozen of the arrests are linked to critical coverage of the breakout of fighting between the Ethiopian army and militias in the Amhara region. In addition, security forces in the region have detained more than 4,000 anti-government demonstrators and opposition politicians critical of plans to demobilize ethnic Amhara militias. The arrests raised the total number of media employees arrested across Ethiopia this year to 22. The authorities have accused the detainees of worsening the bloodshed at a time when the country is torn apart by strife.
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