They
fled the country before the trial and were convicted in absentia
Ethiopia’s
federal supreme court yesterday sentenced three magazine owners in
absentia to more than three years in prison on charges of “inciting
violent revolts, printing and distributing unfounded rumours and
conspiring to unlawfully abolish the constitutional system of the
country.”
The
three, who fled the country when the prosecution was mooted, are
Addis
Guday
publisher Endalkachew
Tesfaye,
Lomi
publisher Gizaw
Taye
and Fact
publisher Fatuma
Nuriya.
Their jail terms range from three years and three months to three
years and eleven months.
Ethiopia’s
justice ministry announced in August that it was bringing
criminal charges against these three magazines and three other
weeklies – Enqu,
Jano
and Afro-Times.
“The
sentences imposed on these three magazine owners are shocking,”
said Cléa Kahn-Sriber, the head of the Reporters Without Borders
Africa desk. “The clearly outrageous grounds for their conviction
are indicative of how a very authoritarian regime is manipulating the
justice system. This type of persecution amounts to banning
independent media in Ethiopia altogether.”
The
authorities have been stepping up their persecution of news and
information providers for the past several months. Six
bloggers and three journalists (including an Addis
Guday
reporter) have been held since April. After repeated postponements,
their trial is now scheduled for 15 October.
In
June, 18
journalists were fired from Oromia
Radio and Television Organization (ORTO),
the main state-owned broadcaster in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest
region, for supposedly having “narrow political views.” The
dismissal order came from the government.
Ethiopia
is ranked 143rd out of 180 countries in the 2014
Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.
Source: RSF
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