A French journalist, Antoine Galindo, has been imprisoned in Ethiopia since his arrest on February 22, with authorities accusing him of “conspiring to create chaos”, his employer announced on Monday, the specialist publication Africa Intelligence.
Extended detention until March 1
Antoine Galindo appeared on Saturday before a judge who extended his detention until March 1, according to Africa Intelligence. The publication denounces “false accusations” which “are not based on any tangible element” and calls for his “immediate release”. Asked by AFP about this arrest, the Ethiopian authorities did not immediately respond. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs had also not reacted at the start of the afternoon.
Antoine Galindo, 36, head of the East Africa section, arrived in Ethiopia on February 13 to cover the African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa, headquarters of the pan-African organization. “Antoine Galindo, a journalist known to the Ethiopian Media Authority (EMA)”, the media supervisory body in Ethiopia, “had a visa authorizing him to carry out his journalistic activity”, underlines Africa Intelligence which criticizes a “unjustified arrest” constituting “a serious attack on freedom of the press”.
The journalist was, between 2013 and 2017, correspondent in Ethiopia for several international media. According to a source close to the case, Antoine Galindo was arrested Thursday afternoon in the Ethiopian capital in the company of an official of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a legally registered opposition party, with whom he had a meeting.
An OLF spokesperson confirmed that a party official had been arrested at the same time on Thursday in Addis Ababa, without being able to confirm that he was in the company of the journalist. This official is also still detained.
“An unjust arrest”
A source close to the Ethiopian government, requesting anonymity, indicated that Antoine Galindo had been “accredited by the AU to cover the Summit”, but that the EMA had not “issued him additional authorization to cover other subjects.” “The police therefore accused him of working outside the accreditation issued for the AU Summit” and “of having met members of forces (…) declared illegal for their attempts to destabilize the nation,” explained this source.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) denounced “an unjust arrest” which “illuminates the terrible context for the press in general in Ethiopia (… the second worst jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa).
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), this “arbitrary detention” is “the terrible illustration” of “hostility towards independent journalism” on the part of the Ethiopian authorities who “seek to control the narrative of recent socio-political tensions”.
The second most populous country in Africa (120 million inhabitants) and a mosaic of some 80 ethno-linguistic communities, Ethiopia is undermined by several local conflicts, particularly in the two most populous regional states, Oromia and ‘Amhara.
In Oromia, which has some 40 million mainly Oromo inhabitants, federal forces have been confronting the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) since 2018. Classified as a “terrorist organization” in Ethiopia, it was born from a split in the OLF when it renounced armed struggle and was legalized.
In Amhara, a state of emergency has been in force since August to try – so far without success – to quell the Fano insurrection, popular Amhara militias who took up arms in April 2023 against the federal authorities.
A first in more than three years
The state of emergency suspends a certain number of rights and freedoms, particularly in terms of arrests and detentions. It applies throughout Ethiopia to anyone suspected of involvement in the violence in this region of around 23 million inhabitants, mainly populated by Amhara.
After decades of repression, press freedom had made spectacular progress when current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, who freed several journalists and opponents. But the situation has deteriorated profoundly again since 2020 and the start of two years of war against the dissident authorities of the regional state of Tigray.
Ethiopia has incarcerated several Ethiopian journalists and expelled several foreign journalists since 2020, but the imprisonment of a foreign journalist is a first in more than three years. In mid-2020, a Kenyan journalist, Yassin Juma, was detained for more than a month, although the Ethiopian justice system ordered his release. Seen when he came to power as a reformer capable of modernizing Ethiopia after decades of authoritarian regimes, Mr. Abiy, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, disappointed the hopes placed in him.
In 2023, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Ethiopia ranked 130th in the world in terms of press freedom, down 16 places compared to 2022. According to the NGO, as of January 1, 2024, 15 journalists were in prison.