By JACKSON MUTINDA
The Nation Media Group (NMG) has petitioned the government of Ethiopia over the detention of its Addis Ababa-based correspondent Tesfa-Alem Tekle, who was arrested on October 31 in the capital.
Mr Tesfa was charged in an Addis court with “insulting the ruling party and having links with a terrorist organisation” and released on a 1,000 birr ($21) bail on November 4. However, the authorities did not release him and have been holding him incommunicado since.
In a letter to the country’s Ministry of Justice and copied to the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, NMG group Editorial director Mutuma Mathiu said: “We are concerned about the safety of Tesfa and appeal to the authorities to disclose his whereabouts and the circumstances under which he is being held.”
This comes amid complaints of the constriction of media freedoms since the breakout of the war in Tigray in November 2020.
Human and media rights organisations have accused Ethiopian authorities of harassment, arrest and detention of journalists in the course of their work,
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says it has noted an increase in cases of harassment and arrest of journalists in the past year.
“CPJ has found a deterioration of press freedom in Ethiopia since the war (in Tigray) started. Even before that we were documenting violations, for instance arrests of journalists and a failure to follow due process in their cases, but this trend became entrenched after the start of the war,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ Sub-Saharan Representative.
Media freedom
“Numerous journalists have been arrested, many of them facing nebulous allegations such as supporting TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) and the police hold them for long pre-charge durations while claiming to carry out investigations. “
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