(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF report: Freedom with strings attached: Over 160 journalists jailed since 1991 With the support of the European Union April 2000 Introduction Ethiopia has for some time been condemned by organisations for the defence of press freedom as the biggest prison on the African continent for journalists. On 1 […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF report:
Freedom with strings attached: Over 160 journalists jailed since 1991
With the support of the European Union
April 2000
Introduction
Ethiopia has for some time been condemned by organisations for the defence of press freedom as the biggest prison on the African continent for journalists. On 1 April 2000, eight members of the profession were behind bars in the country. Four had been there since 1997. Some were convicted of press offences; others for “taking part in terrorist activities”. The increasing number of journalists being prosecuted, and the confusion surrounding the cases – sometimes even the journalists’ lawyers are not aware of all the charges against their clients – makes any investigation very difficult. Nobody knows exactly who is in jail and how long they have been there. Journalists often do not know the names of their imprisoned colleagues. Similarly, justice ministry officials do not always know why journalists have been imprisoned.
Many Ethiopian journalists have cases pending against them and may therefore be arrested at any time. Others – who are not being prosecuted, either because they do not write about sensitive subjects or because they enjoy protection from people close to the government – do not seem particularly concerned about the state of press freedom in their country. Only a few journalists are really active in defence of their colleagues.
A representative of Reporters Sans Frontières went to Ethiopia from 16 to 23 March 2000 to investigate the press freedom situation and collect information about the eight journalists in prison.
More than eighty titles
About 50 privately owned newspapers publishing general news, most of them weeklies, are available from Addis Ababa newsstands. Sport and cultural magazines can also be found, along with some soft porn publications. Almost all these titles are in the Amharic language. Ten or so political and financial weeklies are published in English. Although Ethiopia has no official body that monitors circulation figures, there is general agreement that Menelik is the largest-circulation newspaper, with 16,000 copies sold weekly. Most publications have a circulation of between 2,000 and 6,000. The Ethiopian Free Journalists’ Association (EFJA), started in 1993 for journalists from the private press, won official recognition on 13 March 2000. The government publishes four newspapers: two dailies, in Amharic and English, and two weeklies, in Oromo and Arabic. Four of the 9 regions in Ethiopia’s federal system have their own publications. There is also an official news agency, the Ethiopian News Agency.
The broadcasting sector is entirely controlled by the state. National radio covers the whole of the country, while television can be picked up by 75% of the population. State media employ about 500 journalists. The Ethiopian Journalists’ Association (EJA) has about 300 members working in the state media.
Eight journalists in jail
Tamrat Gemeda (Seife Nebelbal)
In October 1997 Tamrat Gemeda, editor in chief of the weekly Seife Nebelbal, was arrested in Addis Ababa along with 105 other people of Oromo origin. They were taken to Nazret prison, 100 kilometres east of the capital. All were freed a few months later, except for Tamrat Gemeda, who was moved to Kerchiele central jail, Addis Ababa. He was accused over several articles published in Seife Nebelbal. In one, a reporter claimed that a pro-government militia had gone to Chomo-Dabos (Oromia State West of the country), where it had suffered heavy losses in clashes with another armed group, which was not named. The weekly said the militia leader had died in the fighting, and even specified where he was buried.
In March 2000 Tamrat Gemeda was sentenced to a year in jail for publishing “false information”. He had already served his sentence, but is still in jail because numerous other charges are pending against him. The court chairman has refused him bail, claiming that in 1997 he had gone into hiding when he was supposed to turn up for a hearing. In fact, he was being held in Nazret jail. Tamrat Gemeda has written to the authorities asking for confirmation that he had been imprisoned at the time of the hearing. The Addis Ababa criminal investigation department claims to have provided this, but the court says it has received no such confirmation. Tamrat Gemeda is 35.
Tesfaye Deressa, Garuma Bekele and Solomon Nemera (Urji)
On 16 October 1997 Garuma Bekele, publishing manager of Urji, and Tesfaye Deressa, the newspaper’s editor, were arrested in Addis Ababa. A few days earlier, Urji had published a report contradicting an official statement that three men killed by security forces on 8 October were members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and had been involved in attacks carried out by the front. The weekly said that the three men were indeed Oromos (one of the country’s biggest ethnic groups) but did not belong to the OLF. Garuma Bekele was also secretary of the underground Human Rights League, which defends the Oromo cause.
The day after the arrests, Solomon Nemera, a reporter with Urji, was appointed editor. Three weeks later he too was arrested by the police. Urji was forced to stop publishing and has not appeared since.
The three journalists, who have been accused of “inventing and publishing false information”, are being held at Kerchiele jail. In autumn 1999 Garuma Bekele and Tesfaye Deressa were sentenced to a year in prison. In February 2000 Solomon Nemera was given the same sentence. All three have now been behind bars for over two years and have therefore more than served their sentences. However, they cannot be released because they are also charged, along with 49 other people, with “belonging to terrorist movements” under article 252 of the penal code, an offence for which bail is not allowed. They face 15 years in prison if found guilty. The trial is going ahead behind closed doors and their families are banned from attending. Their lawyer, who is the only other person allowed to attend the hearings, has asked the court to try the journalists separately from the 49 other people charged. Because all they did was write articles, they should be tried not under the penal code by under the press law, he said. The court chairman has still not ruled whether this request is admissible. When the trial began, the journalists’ lawyer was unable to obtain permission to visit them in jail. Several months later, when he was finally allowed into Kerchiele prison, the journalists were not allowed to talk to him in the Oromo language. The high court intervened, and the lawyer is now allowed to see his clients whenever he wishes and to converse with them in any language. Meanwhile he has received anonymous threats urging him not to defend the case.
The journalists’ families are allowed to visit them every weekend and to bring them a week’s supply of food. The three men are being held in the same building but not in the same cell. Tesfaye Deressa and Garuma Bekele are in good health, but Solomon Nemera is reported to have lost weight.
Tesfaye Deressa is 34. He has a fiancée but no children. Garuma Bekele is 41, and married with a three-year-old son. Solomon Nemera, 27, is single and has no children.
Tilahun Bekele (Fetash)
In September 1998 Tilahun Bekele, editor of the Amharic-language weekly Fetash, was arrested in the capital. He was held for two months at the Maekelawi criminal investigation centre in Addis Ababa before being moved to Kerchiele jail. Tiflahun Bekele has been charged with three different press offences. In particular, he is accused of publishing a report alleging that an Ethiopian mineral water company was financed by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and was taking water from polluted sources. The Orthodox Church has also filed a libel complaint against him.
After conducting its own investigation in the country, Reporters Sans Frontières is profoundly convinced that Tilahun Bekele did not write the reports over which he is charged. It seems highly probable that he was a victim of the “Tapela” system, in which people are paid about 50 birrs (6.5 euros) a month for allowing their names to be used when registering a newspaper. This means that the name of the editor mentioned in the newspaper’s imprint – and therefore the person legally responsible for its contents – is not that of a journalist but of a person paid for “lending” his name. Several journalists have embraced this system for fear of being sent to prison.
Tilahun Bekele is 32, and married with a seven-year-old daughter. He is suffering from gastric flu and has lost a lot of weight. His family does not have the means to send him medicine.
Amir Adaweh (La République)
Amir Adaweh is a journalist of Djibouti nationality, believed to have been imprisoned in Harrar, eastern Ethiopia, since July 1999. Several sources in Addis Ababa have confirmed that he is being held in Ethiopia. The authorities, on the other hand, claim that they have never heard of him. An official at the justice ministry explained that Ethiopia was a federal nation and that a person might well be held in Harrar without the central government being aware of it.
Amir Adaweh was reportedly arrested while on holiday in Ethiopia. Since then, his mother has been to Harrar and received confirmation that he is in jail there, although she was not allowed to see him. He is believed to be held in very harsh conditions, and one of the prison guards is said to have shot him in the legs.
Amir Adaweh is editor of La République, published by the National Democratic Party, one of the main opposition parties in Djibouti.
Zemedkun Mogus (Atkurot)
Reporters Sans Frontières has been unable to obtain much information about this journalist. He is editor of the Amharic-language weekly Atkurot and has been held at Kerchiele prison since March 1999. The exact reasons for his imprisonment are not known.
Teshalene Mengesha (Mebruk)
The editor of the weekly Mebruk was arrested on 25 January 2000 and sentenced to a year in prison. He is being held at Kerchiele, where his family is allowed to visit him every weekend. He is reported to be in good health.
He was charged over a report published in 1996 which listed forthcoming appointments of officers in the Ethiopian army. Two months later, the government actually made the appointments reported by the weekly, and state-run newspapers even published the information. Teshalene Mengesha was held for two months in 1996 at the Maekelawi criminal investigation centre over the same case. In February 2000 he asked the authorities to take that period of imprisonment into account and reduce his sentence to ten months. The government has still not replied to his request.
Teshalene Mengesha is 48, and is married with a 13-year-old son.
Journalists in danger of arrest
During the mission, the deputy justice minister, Mesfin Girma, told the Reporters Sans Frontières representative that Ethiopian journalists were no longer kept in custody for such long periods as in the past. Nowadays, he said, those arrested were released on bail almost immediately.
The system of paying bail to the courts has indeed enabled many journalists to remain free and continue with their work while awaiting trial.
On the other hand, the slowness with which cases are brought to court and the ever-increasing number of complaints filed means that a large proportion of editors and publishing managers of privately owned newspapers published in Amharic are currently on bail, and may therefore be arrested, sentenced and jailed at any time. Many find the situation hard to take. Although most claim it has not changed the way they write, some admit that they have left the private press and joined state-run newspapers as a result of the pressure.
Since 1991 and the arrival in power of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), more than 160 journalists have been locked up at some time or other.
They include Tesfa Tegegn, general manager of the weekly Ethiop, who has been charged with five separate offences. They involve reports or cartoons published in Ethiop or Beza, another Amharic-language weekly. One of the cartoons shows prime minister Meles Zenawi dressed as a footballer “captaining” the new government team – the cartoonist’s way of condemning lack of transparency in the elections leading to the installation of the new government.
Tsegaye Ayalew, editor of the weekly Genanaw, has been arrested four times between 1995 and 2000. He is currently on bail, but still faces libel charges over six articles published in his newspaper. One of them was a report about two small children killed when they touched an electric cable attached to a pole that had fallen in a street in the capital. Genanaw accused the Ethiopian Light and Power Corporation (a public company) of “pure negligence”. The pole remained on the ground for several days before the board intervened.
Other journalists, anxious to protect their families and not go back to jail, have decided to leave the country. About 15 have fled Ethiopia in recent years, and all have obtained political refugee status in Europe or North America. Dawit Kebede, editor of the weekly Fiameta, left Ethiopia in January 2000. Twelve different cases were pending against him at Addis Ababa courts.
A repressive legal framework
Like most African countries, Ethiopia maintains prison sentences for press offences such as “libel” and “publishing false information” in its legislation. In addition to the press law, the authorities can use some sections of the penal code to pass even heavier penalties against journalists.
Nonetheless, article 29 of the Ethiopian constitution guarantees press freedom, stating that it includes “the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds”. The constitution adds that “media financed or controlled by the state must respect diversity in the expression of opinions”.
Article 3 of press law 34/1992 also guarantees press freedom and bans censorship. This law sets out a general framework for the practice of the profession of journalist. Registering a publication, for example, is relatively easy: a simple matter of submitting an application to the information ministry. The law allows journalists to protect their sources, except in matters involving “state or government security”. Penalties are also provided for in this legislation. Anyone found guilty of libelling a person or company may be sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Other penalties are taken from the penal code, which dates from 1957 and provides for jail terms of up to ten years for anyone convicted of “damaging state security”, “incitement to war” or “revealing state secrets”. Article 269 includes similar sentences for anyone convicted of publishing information “liable to demoralise public opinion”. Other, less severe penalties, such as suspended sentences and fines, are stipulated in cases of libelling or insulting individuals.
In June 1999 parliament adopted broadcasting law 178/1999, under which privately run television channels and radio stations may be started, but on 1 April 2000 the office in charge of the attribution of frequencies to private operators has not been set by the government. Broadcasters who fail to respect certain terms of the law concerning licences, advertising regulations and so on are liable to be sent to prison. The broadcasting law refers to the press law for offences such as libel.
Harsh prison conditions
Tesfa Tegegn said that at Kerchiele prison he did not have the right to receive letters written in English, and was not allowed to have a pencil and paper. Prisoners are forced to sleep head to foot in order to have room to lie down. More than 300 people may be held in the same building. Even so, Fekadu Beshah, a former journalist with the Amharic-language weekly Tomar, said that the other prisoners had great respect for journalists.
One of them described the Kerchiele prison as a “concentration camp”. He said that in 1997, when he was held there, between 30 and 40 people had to share the same cell and only had access to the toilets twice a day. Those who were ill had to use plastic bags. The ex-prisoner explained that only one member of his family had the right to visit him, for five minutes once a week.
Iskender Nega, publishing manager of the weekly Menelik, was a victim of ill-treatment while in prison. In 1996 he was taken to a police station where he was beaten on the soles of his feet with an electric cable. He was then kept in solitary confinement for several months in a windowless cell.
In 1995 Israel Seboka, publishing manager of the weekly Seife Nebelbal, was held for 58 days at Addis Ababa’s number four police station. About 50 people shared the dimly lit cell measuring only 16 square metres.
Conclusions
The authorities must share responsibility for the state of press freedom in Ethiopia. In most cases that come before the courts, journalists are jailed as a result of complaints filed by state officials or high-ranking civil servants. But it is also true that some journalists fail to respect professional standards. Many ill-informed and defamatory articles can be found in the press. A few – fortunately much more unusual – could even be regarded as incitement to racial hatred. Too many journalists do not take the trouble to make serious investigations before rushing into print. Several titles confuse rumour with fact, giving the Ethiopian press a bad reputation generally. Other newspapers, those which go about their work conscientiously and have managed to establish efficient editorial departments, suffer because of their less diligent colleagues. The authorities take advantage of the situation to denigrate the “private press” as a whole.
There is a real need for proper journalists’ training in both the public and private press. There are no courses in journalism or communication studies at Addis Ababa University and only a handful of journalists have managed to study abroad. A journalism option is due to be set up at a private university in the capital at the start of the next academic year.
Another problem journalists have is access to official information. Slowness and red tape, coupled with a definite reluctance to talk to the media, make obtaining government news an uphill struggle.
The Ethiopian legal system is still very repressive. Using the penal code to charge journalists means they are liable to heavy prison sentences. In April 1999 Samson Seyum, editor of the weekly Tequami, was sentenced to four and a half years in jail under the terms of the penal code – the longest sentence given for a press offence in Ethiopia since 1991. Although several laws guarantee freedom of information, the courts continue to use the code, which dates from the time of the Ethiopian empire (before 1974), to keep journalists in their place.
Although fewer journalists are now in jail (eight on 1 April 2000 compared to 13 in January 1998), Ethiopia is still Africa’s biggest prison for the profession.
Recommendations
Reporters Sans Frontières calls on the Ethiopian government to:
– secure the release of seven of the journalists in prison – Tamrat Gemeda, Tesfaye Deressa, Garuma Bekele, Solomon Nemera, Amir Adaweh, Zemedkun Mogus and Teshalene Mengesha. To the best of our knowledge, they have done no more than practise their profession, as they are guaranteed the right to do by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has been ratified by Ethiopia;
– free Tilahun Bekele. According to the information collected by Reporters Sans Frontières, he has been a victim of a deplorable practice used by some journalists to avoid their legal responsibilities, and is in no way responsible for articles that have appeared in Fetash;
– amend the press law, abolishing prison sentences for press offences. Our organisation recalls that in January 2000 the United Nations’ special rapporteur on freedom of speech and opinion called on all governments to “ensure that press offences are no longer punishable by terms of imprisonment, except in cases involving racist or discriminatory comments or calls to violence. In the case of offences such as “libelling”, “insulting” or “defaming” the head of State and publishing or broadcasting “false” or “alarmist” information, prison terms are both reprehensible and out of proportion to the harm suffered by the victim. In all such cases, imprisonment as punishment for the peaceful expression of an opinion constitutes a serious violation of human rights”;
– quickly establish an office for the attribution of the frequencies so that private television channels and radio stations may be started.
Furthermore, Reporters Sans Frontières calls on Ethiopian journalists to:
– respect professional ethics and standards, such as those laid down in the Charter of Journalists’ Rights and Obligations adopted in Munich in 1971;
– put a stop to the “Tapela” system, which is a cause of confusion, and damaging to the reputation of journalists in general.
Finally, Reporters Sans Frontières calls on international funding sources, and particularly the European Union, to make respect for press freedom, and particularly the release of the eight journalists imprisoned in Ethiopia, a condition of any aid to the Ethiopian government.
