US senator publicly condemns Ethiopia’s persecution of the press

Underscoring the importance of Ethiopia as an important partner for the United States
in containing terrorism and ending poverty and famine in the region, Senator
Patrick Leahy, a democrat from Vermont, published
on Thursday a statement

in The Congressional Record, the official daily journal of U.S.
Congress, in which he condemned the assault on the freedom of the Ethiopian
press under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The senator argued that success for the Obama
administration’s new partnership with Meles on food
security
depends on “broad national consultation, transparency, and
accountability,” values, he said, that “depend in no small part on a free
press.”

Leahy highlighted the emblematic case of Ethiopia’s most
prominent imprisoned journalist and blogger, Eskinder
Nega
. Eskinder, whom PEN
American Center honored
this year with the Freedom to Write Award, could be convicted
on June 21 on vague terrorism charges that carry a life
sentence “simply for refusing to remain silent about the Ethiopian
government’s increasingly authoritarian drift.” Five days prior to his arrest
in September 2011, Eskinder had published an article
criticizing the
Meles administration “for misusing a vaguely-worded 2009 antiterrorism law to
jail journalists and political opponents,” Leahy said.

In public statements
and state media, Ethiopian government officials have sought to discredit

Eskinder and the other 10 journalists, calling them terrorist accomplices
involved in anti-state activities.

The evidence offered
against the journalist in court, Leahy said, included “a video of a town hall
meeting in which Eskinder discusses the Arab Spring and speculates on whether
similar protests were possible in Ethiopia.” The journalist also consistently
highlighted “the government’s denial of human rights, and call[ed] for an end
to political repression and corruption” despite being jailed seven times, his
wife imprisoned, and his newspapers repeatedly banned over two decades, Leahy
said.

Leahy was the third member of Congress, after
Alaska Senator Mark Begich and California Representative Edward Royce, to publicly
voice concern over the persecution of 11 Ethiopian journalists “for
questioning government actions and policies–activities that you and I and
people around the world would recognize as fundamental to any free press,” he
wrote. He added, “Ironically, by
trying to silence those who do not toe the official line, the government is
only helping to underscore the concerns that many inside and outside of
Ethiopia share about the deterioration of democracy and human rights in that
country.”

In the statement, Leahy, the chairman of a sub-committee
responsible for funding portions of U.S. assistance
to foreign countries, said the “importance of respecting freedom of the press
cannot be overstated” in the disbursement of aid to the government.