Ethiopia: CPJ Calls for Release of Two Journalists


The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is calling on Ethiopian authorities to release two journalists accused ofviolation of the Constitution“, head potentially liable to the death penalty, and to “stop targeting members of the press“.

Dessu Dulla and Bikila Amenu, journalists from the online television Oromia News Network (ONN), were arrested on November 18, 2021, CPJ said in a statement received on Tuesday, May 3, International Press Freedom Day. ONN is considered close to the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), an opposition party that has renounced armed struggle since its leaders returned from exile after current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018. first Oromo (the largest community in the country) in this position.

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Two journalists accused of “undermining the Constitution”

After months of arbitrary detention, the subversion charges against Ethiopian journalists Dessu Dulla and Bikila Amenu, who could potentially face the death penalty, are outrageousCPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal said in a statement. “The authorities had months to establish credible charges against the journalists and the fact that they did not simply shows that the procedure is retaliatory in nature“, she adds, believing that”Dessu Dulla and Bikila Amenu should be released immediately and unconditionally“.

According to CPJ, the two journalists are due to appear on Tuesday, May 3, after multiple hearing postponements. Dessu Dulla and Bikila Amenu are accused ofbreach of the constitutionsaid CPJ, citing their lawyer, Gudane Fekadu. This count is punishable by three years in prison to life, but according to Gudane Gudane, the Public Prosecutor’s Office requests the application of article 258 of the Penal Code which provides for the death penalty in the event of aggravating circumstances, such as for example when the facts were committed during a civil war.

An armed conflict has pitted the Ethiopian federal government against rebels in the Tigray region since November 2020. The latter have allied themselves with a rebellion in the Oromia region, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), resulting from a split in the OLF. Separately, in a statement released on Tuesday, Daniel Bekele, head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (an independent public body), expressed concern over the arrest on Sunday by plainclothes police, “of journalist Gobeze Sisay, whose whereabouts have not been known since“. On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, Daniel Bekele also recalled the report published in April by the EHRC, denouncing the “detentions in defiance of legal procedures of journalists and media workersin Ethiopia.


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