NEW YORK – The Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Thursday appealed to Ethiopia’s tyrant Meles Zenawi to provide evidence that jailed journalists Goshu Moges was caught trying to “overthrow” the government.
“The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the imprisonment of Goshu Moges, a veteran journalist arrested in February in what police described as a crackdown on terrorists linked to opposition parties. We are seeking further information about the evidence against him,” CPJ said in its press release.
Goshu Moges and other 14 journalists face charges of seeking to “overthrow, modify or suspend constitution,” same charges like other opposition leaders and social activists, Chief Prosecutor Shemelis Kemal told CPJ.
Goshu was publisher of the independent Amharic weekly and the monthly magazine of Lisane Hizb.
CPJ said Goshu was arrested on February 19, the day before “police released a statement claiming to have arrested “the leadership and executors of a clandestine group that was preparing to unleash armed urban terrorism and assault. It is unclear how many people were detained in the sweep.”
“While not explicitly banned by the government, Lisane Hezeb has been unable to publish since November 2005, when authorities launched a massive crackdown on the private press. Before it stopped publishing, the newspaper ran very critical coverage of the disputed 2005 parliamentary elections, including articles claiming the elections were stolen, a local source told CPJ. Journalists say your government has pressured printing houses not to print many independent newspapers.
“In December 2005, Moges took part in a small private meeting between local publishers and Justice Ministry officials, during which he criticized the government’s crackdown on the press, CPJ sources said. Moges had also publicly criticized the nominally private but pro-government newspaper Iftin, which was the first media outlet to announce the government’s “wanted list” of opposition leaders, journalists and civil society activists in November.
“According to CPJ records, Moges himself was imprisoned several times in the 1990s in connection with his work for the critical Amharic-language newspaper and magazine Tobia, where he served first as editor and later as publisher. In 1998, he spent more than six months behind bars after Tobia published a report from a United Nations agency warning of a possible humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia.”
