Ethiopia: “Terrorist journalists” and press freedom

Two young
Ethiopian journalists, Woubishet Taye,
Deputy Editor of Awramba Times, and Reyot Alemu, a columnist of Fetih newspaper, have been facing terrorism charges under
the controversial “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No.652/2009”.
Coincidentally, it was only last week that the 547-seat Ethiopian Parliament,
where the ruling party occupies all but two seats, officially named Al Qaida,
Al Shabab, Ginbot 7, the
Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ogaden National
Liberation Front (ONLF), terrorist groups. The implication of that on
journalists and government critics is that any news reports or commentaries on
these groups can be deemed abetting, promoting, encouraging or endorsing the
causes of terrorists.

In August
2009, Ethiopia’s “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No.652/2009”
entered into force with its publication in the Federal Negarit
Gazeta. Since its inception, the elastic terrorism
legislation has been dogged by controversy as it further criminalizes freedom
of expression and thought. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the
Committee to Protect Journalists, among many others, took turns to appeal to
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi
to reconsider the legislation. But, as usual, Mr. Zenawi
did not take his regular critics seriously.

Critics argue
that the law is deliberately broad and ambiguous. It not only allows hearsay to
be presented in court as evidence against terrorism suspects, but also deems
demonstrations and protest rallies terrorist acts if they cause disruption of
public services, including traffic, according to a Human Rights Watch analysis
on the legislation.

Article 6 of
the proclamation stipulates: “Whosoever publishes or causes the
publication of a statement that is likely to be understood by some or all of
the members of the public to whom it is published as a direct or indirect
encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission or preparation or
instigation of an act of terrorism…is punishable with rigorous
imprisonment from 10 to 20 years.”

Freedom of
the press, which has now been deliberately confused with terrorism, has a
fascinating story in Ethiopia. After the fall of the Mengistu
regime in May 1991, freedom, democracy, equality and justice were loudly
declared by the new sheriffs in town. In his first televised address to an
anxious nation waiting for change, Meles Zenawi assured Ethiopians that a transition to democracy
was launched in earnest that would transform Ethiopia for the better.

“Our
fellow countrymen, the era of the brutal military regime is over. Now is the
beginning of a new chapter. It is an era of unfettered freedom. Our 17-year
long armed struggle has completely destroyed tyranny, which will never come
back to terrorize and haunt you again…never, never again,” the
rulers announced at every opportunity and venue. The promise was undoubtedly
too good to be true.

Realizing the
fact that press freedom is one of the pillars of democracy, freedom of
expression and thought was “guaranteed”, at least on paper.
Newspapers mushroomed in Addis Ababa as soon as press freedom was declared in
1992. To the dismay of our liberators, however, daring journalists and ordinary
citizens started “abusing” their new-found freedom. The critical
stories and commentaries that were being published were too much for the
liberators, who became victims of the freedom they declared. They needed to
find a way to regulate the “free” press, a thought that gave birth
to the 1992 Ethiopian Press Law, which critics referred to as draconian and
oppressive.

For fear of
backlashes, the publicly funded media outlets, including the only national TV
station and the only national radio station have been protected from critics
and divergent views. Consequently, the work of journalists and broadcasters
working for the government media is too easy to be called a job. It is all
positive news, paying homage to the rulers and congratulating them for their
shining victories and successes.

The private
press was the problem child that needed to be disciplined all the time. Zenawi appears to be convinced that “freedom of
expression” needs a limit and journalists had to be muzzled and tethered
so that they would not run amok. With that in mind, the courts started sending
journalist to jails and imposing hefty fines that not even business tycoons
could afford to pay. As a result, human rights organizations and media freedom
advocacy groups have given all kinds of bad names to Mr. Zenawi,
whose commitment to regulating free press and violating human rights has been
unwavering.

In the last
15 years, nearly 200 journalists, from the state-owned as well as the private
press, have gone into exile. To their credit, a few journalists who have
refused to leave their country have been courageously visiting jails now and
then. Eskinder Nega holds
the record for being jailed nine times since the days of his popular newspaper Ethiopis. In the eyes of the regime, he is one of the most
dangerous “terrorist journalists.” That is the very reason why his
publishing license has been revoked. Sisay Agena is another terrorist journalist and winner of the
2010 PEN USA Freedom to Write Award who was jailed seven times. Sisay is now out of the country and unlikely to return
home. If he chooses to do so, he will undoubtedly face charges of committing
acts of terrorism.

The worst
time for Ethiopia’s once fledgling private press was the aftermath of the
disputed May 2005 elections. After security forces killed 193 civilians,
wounded 789 and rounded up nearly 40,000 people, the crackdowns against dissent
reached a climax. The story was under-reported around the world. But one of the
few Western reporters who witnessed the brutal crackdowns, David Blair of the
Daily Telegraph, wrote: “A crackdown on this scale has not been seen in
Africa for 20 years and the repression exceeds anything by President Robert
Mugabe of Zimbabwe for the past decade at least. Apartheid-era South
Africa’s onslaught against the black townships in the 1980s provides the
only recent comparison.”

Journalists,
scholars and newspaper columnists have also been routinely facing accusations
of committing capital crimes only for publishing or broadcasting news and
opinions. Nearly 20 newspapers were closed down and close to 40 editors, journalists and critics were charged with high
treason, “genocide” and outrage against the constitution. The
accused included five popular Voice of America Amharic service staff, two
exiled website editors, Abraha Belai
and Elias Kifle, who have never been to Ethiopia for
nearly two decades. The wheelchair-bound professor and renowned philologist, Getachew Haile, who is a recipient of a MacArthur
Fellowship, nicknamed the Genius Award was also among those changed with capital
crimes. Professor Getachew left Ethiopia over three
decades ago after an attempt on his life during the Mengistu
regime but he is still committing the “capital crimes” the regime
dreads to see by publishing his strong views on the Internet.

A couple of
weeks ago, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an agency of the US
Government that oversees all civilian international broadcasting of the United
States, sent a delegation to Ethiopia to discuss with senior government
officials issues related to the jamming of Voice of America Afaan
Oromoo, Amharic and Tigrigna transmissions to
Ethiopia. The jamming of all independent broadcasts including the Ethiopian
Satellite Television has particularly intensified after Mr. Zenawi
told reporters in March 2010 that he would authorize jamming.

“We
have been convinced for many years that in many respects, the VOA Amharic
Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda in its wanton disregard of minimum
ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda,” he said.

“We
have to know before we make the decision to jam, whether we have the capacity
to do it. But I assure you if they assure me at some future date that they have
the capacity to jam it, I will give them the clear guideline to jam it,” Zenawi declared. Thanks to the Chinese government, the
regime has now built a capacity to jam shortwave radio and satellite TV
signals.

VOA Amharic
reported on its June 23rd broadcast that during the meeting the BBG delegation
was given a lecture on the history of the Tigray
People Liberation Front by Bereket Simon, Government
Communication Affairs Minister. David Arnold, Chief of VOA’s Horn of
Africa, said that Bereket Simon demanded VOA not to
give platform to well-known critics such as Dr. Merara
Gudina, Dr Birhanu Nega, Siye
Abreha, Professor Beyene Petros, Professor Paulos Milkias, Girma Moges, Getachew Metaferia and Ali Abdu. “The list goes on,”
Arnold disclosed. (Needless to say, I am also said to be included in the long
list.)

The amazing
demand did not stop there. According to informed BBG insiders I talked to, Bereket Simon also urged VOA to fire respected broadcasters
like Tizita Belachew, Addisu Abebe and Solomon Kifle. What is clear from the wish list of Meles Zenawi is the fact that his
regime lacks a basic understanding of how civilized countries like United
States operate. They do not seem to have a clue that the U.S. Constitution is
sacrosanct and not even President Obama has the power to make Zenawi’s hopeless dreams come true.

When the five
VOA broadcasters were charged with “genocide” and high treason in
2005, it was enough for White House to send the then U.S. Ambassador to
Ethiopia Vicki Huddleston to Mr. Zenawi’s
palace to have the charges dropped. Quite obviously, the Ambassador must have
explained to Zenawi that the Voice of America is
owned by the U.S. Government, which is ultimately responsible for the content
of its broadcasts. Despite all that, Bereket Simon
once more exposed nothing but the most serious problem that has been
undermining the Meles regime, i.e. the fact that it
suffers from deficit of common sense. Ignorance, especially when it is
deliberately self-imposed in this time of enlightenment, is neither easy to
treat nor expunge from the body politic.

The
Anti-Terrorism Law was supposed to protect the nation from acts of terrorism.
It beggars belief that the legislation safeguards our best interests by locking
up journalists and government critics. Both journalists facing terrorist
charges, Woubeshet Taye and
Reyot Alemu, are widely
recognized for writing sharply critical articles on corruption, human rights
violations, discrimination, injustice and administrative malfeasance. According
Shimeles Kemal, former prosecutor and currently one
of Zenawi’s foolhardy spokesmen that have been
objects of ridicule, the ring leader of the terrorist plot was the exiled
journalist Elias Kifle, editor and publisher of
Ethiopianreview.com.  Elias, an
Ethiopian-American living in Atlanta, has already been sentenced to death in
absentia for publishing and distributing incitement against the government.

It appears
that when dictators experience severe episodes of paranoia, they become
extremely nervous and afraid of practically everything including their own shadows.
Yes, it is quite understandable that “the pen is mightier than the
sword”, as the English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton once said. In any
case, that should not be translated to mean that journalists are terrorists,
which seems to be the entrenched view of the regime.

George Orwell
once said: “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a
revolutionary act.” Given the fact that the “terrorist
journalists”, the second batch to be labeled as such, are benign, they
must be released sooner rather than later as the travesty will only backfire on
the regime.

Whatever the
case, freedom of expression is not tantamount to terrorism. Ethiopians do not
need to be protected from up-and-coming young and passionate journalists like Woubeshet and Reyot, who is one
of the few female political commentators in Ethiopia. If they are terrorists,
let us see the evidence other than the “self-incriminating” stories
and articles they have written. As long as they are armed only with sharp pens,
they will never harm a silenced nation like ours.

Former
President Negasso Gidada
has summed up the popular sentiment toward the terrorism legislation.
“The law itself terrorizes citizens. We are strictly against it,”
he told AFP.