{"id":281163,"date":"2019-07-09T11:59:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T15:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CBMib2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFtbmVzdHkub3JnL2VuL2xhdGVzdC9uZXdzLzIwMTkvMDcvZXRoaW9waWEtbmV3LWpvdXJuYWxpc3QtYXJyZXN0cy1wdXQtcHJlc3MtZnJlZWRvbS1nYWlucy1hdC1yaXNrL9IBAA?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-10-07T11:26:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:26:06","slug":"journalists-face-terrorism-charges-as-ethiopias-defence-ministry-vows-to-sue-media-after-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/281163","title":{"rendered":"Journalists face terrorism charges as Ethiopia\u2019s defence ministry vows to sue media after the 22 June killings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Ethiopian journalists arrested after the 22 June 2019 killings of the army chief of staff and senior Amhara officials were charged under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, and the Ministry of Defence said it would take journalists and media outlets to court over their reporting on the armed forces. Amnesty International warned in July that the government risked rolling back the press freedom gains it had made in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"Newspaper
Newspaper readers in Addis Ababa, October 2004 (Terje Skjerdal, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0) [file photo]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Berihun Adane, editor-in-chief of the privately owned Asrat TV and the weekly Berera newspaper, was arrested on 26 June. Elias Gebru, editor of Enqu magazine, which closed in 2014, was arrested on 6 July. Both were charged under the 2009 anti-terrorism law, which earlier governments had used to bring what Amnesty called trumped-up charges against critics. The wave of arrests after the killings also swept up activists and members of the opposition National Movement of Amhara.<\/p>\n

On 8 July, Major General Mohammed Tessema, head of the army\u2019s indoctrination division, told a press conference that the defence forces had finished preparations to sue individuals and media organisations spreading \u201chearsay\u201d, defamation and false information, borkena reported, citing state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporation. He said those \u201cworking to create mistrust between the army and the people\u201d had been identified and would be brought to justice. He did not name them. He also said a national task force had been set up to find out who was behind the killings and why.<\/p>\n

The turn came after a year of praise. After Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in April 2018, the government released dozens of jailed journalists and bloggers and repealed the restrictive civil society law. By the end of 2018 no journalist was behind bars in Ethiopia, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the country rose 40 places in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index. Ethiopia hosted UNESCO\u2019s World Press Freedom Day in May 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter making great strides on press freedom, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed\u2019s government received glowing tributes, and the honour of hosting this year\u2019s World Press Freedom Day event,\u201d said Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty\u2019s director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes. \u201cThis new round of arrests is a hugely regressive move that risks rolling back the progress witnessed in 2018. All journalists arrested must be immediately released and all charges against them unconditionally dropped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> Amnesty International<\/a>, borkena (Fana Broadcasting Corporation)<\/a>, Mereja (CPJ, July 2019)<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethiopia: New journalist arrests put press freedom gains at risk  Amnesty InternationalAfter a glorious year in 2018, freedom is in jeopardy this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/newspaper-readers-addis-ababa-2004.jpg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1b8T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281163"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837412,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281163\/revisions\/837412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}