Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today about the mounting
repression
against journalists in Ethiopia, reporting that it has registered five
cases of arbitrary punitive measures and 10 arrests during the past
week,
in which the country has been awaiting final results in the recent
legislative elections.

“The government is riding roughshod over Ethiopia’s democratic
guarantees
in full view of the international community, especially the African
Union,
which has its headquarters in Addis Ababa,” the press freedom
organisation
said.

“Journalists are becoming increasingly unwelcome observers during this
period of political unrest and the government is clearly unwilling to
tolerate any criticism,” the organisation added. “It is vital that
foreign
governments and international bodies with any influence over Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi should intervene at once to try to stop this
spiral
of repression.”

The editors and deputy editors of four privately-owned newspapers in
Addis
Ababa received summonses from the Central Federal Bureau of
Investigation
on 1 June to report to the police the next day. When they went, they
were
held throughout the day and were finally set free in the course of the
night, without any explanation.

The eight editors concerned were Zelalem Gebre of Menilik and his
deputy
Serkalem Fassil, Abiye Gizaw of Netsanet and his deputy Dereje
Abtewold,
Mesfin Tesfaye of Abay and his deputy Fekadu Indrias, and Fassil
Yenalem
of Zena and his deputy Simret G. Mariam.

Two journalists with the US news agency, the Associated Press,
photographer Boris Heger and reporter Anthony Mitchell, were arrested
during deadly clashes on the campus of Addis Ababa university on 6 June
and were held for seven hours. The memory card was confiscated from
Heger’s digital camera.

Finally, the public television station ETV last night broadcast an
information ministry statement withdrawing the accreditation of five
Ethiopian journalists working for the Amharic-language services of the
German public radio, Deutsche Welle (DW), and the US government’s Voice
of
America (VOA).

The five – Helen Mohamed, Bereket Teklu and Temam Aman of VOA, and
Asegedech Yiberta and Tadesse Engdawde of DW – were accused in the
statement of producing “irresponsible, baseless and invalid” reports.

Despite a government ban on demonstrations in the capital, hundreds of
students have been protesting against provisional results issued by the
electoral commission giving the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its allies party a narrow victory in the
15
May legislative elections.

Polling has had to be reheld in various places because of fraud or
irregularities. The two main opposition parties have challenged the
results and have been accused by the authorities of encouraging the
student protests.

Reporters Without Borders also noted that Shiferraw Insermu and
Dhabassa
Wakjira, two journalists who used to work for ETV’s Oromo-language
service, have been detained without any justification for more than a
year
in Addis Ababa. A former colleague now living in exile said they were
arrested in Addis Ababa on 22 April 2004 along with other Oromo
employees
of ETV who have since been released.

Their arrests were apparently prompted by the broadcasting of a report
about the violent dispersal of an Oromo student demonstration on the
Addis
Ababa university campus on 4 January 2004 in which many were arrested,
especially members of the Macha Tulema social assistance group who were
protesting against the government’s decision to move Oromo regional
bodies
from Addis Ababa (called Finfinne by the Oromos) to Adama (also known
as
Nazret), 100 km east of the capital.