Speaking generally about the Watch List countries, IPI Director Johann P. Fritz said, "Nepal is the only country on the IPI Watch List where there have been improvements. The restoration of democracy provides hope for the future, but it is important that reforms take hold before any decision is made on the country's status."
"In Ethiopia and Zimbabwe the independent media have been systematically
suppressed. The Ethiopian media are currently in disarray because of the
government's determination to prosecute some journalists for treason; while,
in Zimbabwe, the independent media have been drowned in a deluge of repressive
legislation, antagonistic security forces, expensive litigation and red tape
that continues to stifle freedom of the press," Commented Fritz.
"In Russia some media continue to spend much of their broadcasting time on
reports favourable to by the Russian authorities, President Putin and the
ruling party. Elsewhere, journalists continue to be attacked, detained, and
otherwise harassed by authorities and other groups. Despite the focus on
Russian cities, it is actually the outlying provinces where many of the press
freedom violations occur."
"Since becoming president of Venezuela in 1998, Hugo Chávez has waged a
continuous war of words against the domestic media and by expressing his
dislike so vehemently and calling on his supporters to do likewise, President
Chávez has created an extremely hostile climate for the media," said Fritz.
"I also note the legal action brought by the independent media in South Korea and I will continue to monitor the situation with a view to deciding what action IPI should take."
ADDIS ABABA, May 24, 2006 (AFP)
- At least 10 opposition blogs have been inaccessible to Ethiopian
internet users since last week, prompting suspicions the government has
blocked them, a global press freedom watchdog said Tuesday.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the domestic Ethiopian
viewing of the sites, all of which contain posts highly critical of
Addis Ababa, had been impossible since Friday and asked for an
explanation. In an open letter to information minister Berhan Hailu, it
said technical faults were unlikely to be the cause and warned that
shutting down avenues of free expression would likely raise already
heightened political tensions.
"We would like to know if your government has deliberately blocked
access to online publications ... thus taking the course of filtering
the Internet," it said, adding that it believed authorities were
responsible.
"It is likely that the disappearance of the sites is the result of
political censorship and not technical problems," RSF said.
"Preventing debate and controlling news and information circulating
online will only aggravate an already very tense political climate," it
said.
Officials with the information ministry told AFP they had no information
about the sudden disappearance of the blogs from Ethiopian cyber space.
However, an AFP corresondent in Addis Ababa confirmed that blogs listed
by RSF as being blocked were no longer accessible through Ethiopian
internet service providers.
Several of them, viewed by AFP in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, contain
posts attacking Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and criticising
the alleged government shutdown as "an act of desperation". The RSF
complaint comes as Ethiopian opposition groups abroad step up protests
over alleged fraud in disputed elections last year and deadly post-poll
violence they blame on the authorities.
At least 84 people were killed -- many by police -- during two bouts of
unrest that erupted in June and November during demonstrations against
the results of the May elections. The government responded to the
demonstrations by launching a crackdown on opposition figures,
particularly the leadership of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy,
whom it accused of trying to foment a coup d'etat.
Currently 111 defendants are on trial on conspiracy, treason and related
charges for allegedly trying to overthrow the government.
Jewish rights activist arrested in Ethiopia
May 18- (Haaretz) South Wing to Zion,
an Israeli organization that promotes the immigration and absorption of
Ethiopian Jews, asked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday to intervene
in Ethiopia's arrest of the director of the transit camp in Gondar,
which serves thousands of Ethiopians waiting to immigrate to Israel.
Transit camp leaders closed it down yesterday to protest Monday's arrest
of Getu Zemene, who heads the Jewish community in Gondar and is one of
the main activists promoting Jewish immigration from Ethiopia.
The camp's deputy
director, Vateto Geneto, said that Zemene was accused of belonging to
the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry, an American Jewish
organization that is banned in Ethiopia. The group aims to help
Ethiopian Jews survive in Ethiopia and reach Israel.
Ethiopian authorities took Zemene to a prison in the country's capital,
Addis Ababa, yesterday. Geneto said that people trying to keep
Ethiopians from moving to Israel were behind Zemene's arrest.
The Israeli government decided more than a year ago that Israel would
take responsibility for the Ethiopians who are waiting to move here and
double the number of Ethiopian immigrants allowed in, to 600 a month.
However, the decision has yet to be implemented.
The Gondar camp is the only one left in Ethiopia. Activists at the
transit camp in Addis Ababa were arrested a year and a half ago, and
that camp has since shut down.
Amnesty calls on EU member states to investigate human rights violations in Ethiopia
Strasbourg, May 16- In a statement delivered to the Extraordinary
Joint Committee Meeting of the Committee on Development, the
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of
the European Parliament, held at Strasbourg on 15 May 2006, the
anniversary of the May 2005 elections in Ethiopia, which were observed
by the European Union Election Observation Mission, Dr Martin Hill,
Amnesty International’s Researcher on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa,
said the gross human rights violations being perpetrated in Ethiopia
need to be investigated in earnest.
In the early stage of the prosecution case and for the next several
months, 76 people are on trial in Addis Ababa on charges which could
carry the death penalty. They include leading members of the opposition
Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) party, as well as elected
members of parliament, lawyers and academics.
Human rights defenders are among the accused, including Professor Mesfin
Woldemariam, who is aged 76 and in poor health, founder of the only
active human rights reporting organization in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian
Human Rights Council; Daniel Bekele, policy and advocacy manager of the
Ethiopian office of ActionAid, the South Africa-based international
development organization; Netsanet Demissie, director of the
Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia – both are human rights
lawyers and working for the Global Campaign Against Poverty; and
Kassahun Kebede, the Addis Ababa representative of the Ethiopian
Teachers Association.
Fourteen journalists of the private press are also on trial, in this
latest government attack on the freedom of the media. One of them,
Serkalem Fasil, is seven months pregnant and complaining of lack of
medical and pre-natal care.
They are all accused of organizing violent demonstrations against the
government and ruling party over alleged electoral fraud. The CUD
leaders deny this – though they are boycotting the trial as they do not
consider it will be fair. They maintain that they organised peaceful
protests and were not responsible for the violence which erupted,
particularly when the security forces used live ammunition against
demonstrators and killed dozens.
Amnesty International believes the CUD leaders, journalists and human
rights defenders are prisoners of conscience who should not be facing
charges carrying possible death sentences, such as treason, outrage
against the constitution, inciting armed rebellion, and an absurd charge
of “attempted genocide”. Others on trial may also be prisoners of
conscience.
Like the Ambassadors’ Donor Group in Addis Ababa, which includes the
European Commission, Amnesty International has called for the
unconditional release of the opposition party leaders, human rights
defenders and journalists. The government’s claim that they will get a
fair trial is doubtful in view of the history of unfair political trials
under the current government. The European Union’s appointment of an
international trial observer is one important safeguard. The Donor Group
has called for a political reconciliation between the government and
opposition parties.
Amnesty International’s call to the European Parliament
Amnesty International urges the European Parliament to do four things in
response to these violations of human rights:
1. Work vigorously in all possible ways, including through their own
contacts with the Ethiopian parliament and on visits to Ethiopia, to
secure as soon as possible the release of these prisoners of conscience,
as well as closely monitor their treatment in prison.
2. Support the right to freedom of opinion, expression and association
in Ethiopia, including the right to demonstrate peacefully, the right to
publish opinions freely through an independent press, and the right to
engage in civil society activism.
3. Adopt a resolution on the human rights situation in Ethiopia, aimed
particularly at protecting and supporting the Ethiopian human rights
defenders on trial, in line with the European Union Guidelines on Human
Rights Defenders.
4. Call on the European Commission and the EU Council and its member
states, to more actively investigate and report on human rights
violations throughout the country, and bring these to the attention of
the Ethiopian Government and the international community for remedy.
Contact for further information:
Amnesty International EU office, Brussels: +32-2 502 1499
Ethiopia's criminal code violates constitution: UN Commissioner
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Louise Arbour |
12 May- Ethiopia is holding opposition figures under laws that may violate its constitution, Somalia urgently needs international attention, and despite assertions by Sudan’s Government, displaced women in that country’s Darfur region are still being raped on a large scale, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said today.
Just back from a two-week mission to the Horn of Africa, she told reporters at the UN complex in Geneva that in Ethiopia, thousands of people were imprisoned after events following last year’s elections year. Of these just over 100 remained, comprising elected officials, journalists and other members of civil society charged with genocide and treason.
Under the Ethiopian Code of Criminal Procedure, the prisoners could not get bail for these serious offences. Ms. Arbour said this called into question whether the Code was in conformity with the Ethiopian Constitution which provides for the right to bail. The Constitution also provides that bail could be denied in exceptional circumstances by a court, but these defendants had not had access to a court, she noted.
“I have urged the Prosecutor to take another look at the evidence in an effort to see whether it would be feasible in some, if not in all cases, to reduce the charges so as to make them bailable,” she said.
The elected members of parliament were not likely to be able to take up their seats and could remain in custody for a very long period of time, she said. “The reality of this is that it has become a metaphor for the shrinking space for civil society and debate in a country where there were hopes that democracy was going to be flourishing.”
Ms. Arbour noted that the Ethiopian Government had been accommodating in giving her access to the Addis Ababa prison where she met privately with several of the opposition leaders in detention. In Sudan, she visited three camps in Darfur for the second time since 2004 and Southern Sudan’s capital, Juba, for the first time.
Ms. Arbour said that there was no sign that sexual violence against the women of Darfur had receded or been brought under control in any way. During her first visit to Darfur in 2004, she met with groups of women in the camps who had been raped by the Arab militia called janjaweed.
She said she had been shocked to meet women this time who had subsequently given birth to the children of rape and who might later be ostracized by the community. After meeting groups of Darfur’s women who had recently been raped, she said she told the Government the rapes were taking place “on a large and unattended scale.”
“The Government asserted that it had taken many initiatives to address the question of sexual violence. The initiatives that I have been made aware of, as far as I am concerned, so far, continue to be paper initiatives. I saw no evidence on the ground that any of these committees that have been set up to look after these issues have made a dent in the problems,” the High Commissioner said.
Recent events, including the Darfur peace agreement reached in Nigeria, have refocused attention on the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Darfur, “but I think it is fair to say that underneath this humanitarian crisis, there is also a very serious human rights situation,” she said.
Meanwhile, the international community was neglecting the comprehensive peace agreement struck between Southern Sudan and the Government of Sudan last year, she said. South Sudan had to be rebuilt because there was virtually no governance, physical or economic infrastructure after 20 years of conflict.
In south Sudan, as in Darfur, there was no hope of maintaining peace if attention was not given to disarmament, she said.
On Somalia, she said her colleagues in the UN system were poised to deploy, if possible, but there was frustration that “the international community was insufficiently engaged in a country that needed a huge amount of assistance and where a large part of the country still needed governance to take root.”
Last week, the chair of the sanctions committee for Somalia, Qatari Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, briefed the Security Council on the latest report from the Monitoring Group, which said that “arms, military materiel and financial support continue to flow like a river to various actors, in violation of the (1992) arms embargo.”
AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL URGENT ACTION UPDATE
PUBLIC AI Index: AFR 25/017/2006
04 May 2006
Further Information on UA 74/06 (AFR 25/008/2006, 31 March 2006) Fear
of torture/possible prisoners of conscience
ETHIOPIA
Abraham Roda (m), farmer
Abraham Tula (m), former Sidama Development Corporation (NGO) employee
Abure Assefa (m), civil servant
Dessalegne Gassamo (m), US-AID educational advisor
Edasso Ebissa (m), farmer
Musse Alemayehu (m), civil servant, agricultural department
Tadesse Washo (m), nurse
Tefera Janba (m), Awassa Tabour school student
Yosef Lalimo (m), Awassa Tabour school student
All of those named above except Musse Alemayehu, have been
provisionally released on bail without being charged. Dessalegne
Gassamo was freed by a court on around 21 April, while the others were
freed by other courts at the end of April. Musse Alemayehu was
released unconditionally. The police stated that he had been arrested
by mistake.
The men were among some 60 people detained after being arrested on or
after 12 March 2006 in connection with demonstrations by members of
the Sidama ethnic group. The demonstrations took place on 12 March in
Awassa town, the Southern Regional State capital, and other nearby
towns.
Demonstrators were reportedly beaten by federal police, and some were
reportedly shot dead, although details are unconfirmed. They had been
renewing previous Sidama demands for the Sidama zone, where a majority
of the population is of the Sidama ethnic group (or “nationality”), to
be upgraded to a regional state and thereby provide Sidama people with
greater political representation. The current Southern Regional State
(known as the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional
State) comprises several zones and many southern “nationalities". The
federal government opposes this change of administrative bodies.
Ethiopian religion reporting imperiled, says World Press Freedom Day
May5-
Ethiopian
journalists forced into exile in neighbouring countries are crying out for
global help, writes Fredrick Nzwili for Ecumenical News International.
They say a state crackdown in their country has made it impossible for the
independent press to report anything, including religious issues.
"We have been robbed of our right as free journalists," Wondwosen Teklu, an
Ethiopian journalist exiled in Kenya told a media conference in Nairobi on 2 May
2006, the day before ‘World Press Freedom Day’.
They continued: "We would like to tell the world about the horrible conditions
of journalists in our country."
Paris-based organisation Reporters Without Borders said in an annual report
released for World Press Freedom Day that overall, the Middle East was the most
dangerous region, and governments such as those in Libya, Iran, Tunisia, Syria
and Saudi Arabia "exert absolute control over information".
Since the start of 2006, 16 journalists and six co-workers have been killed
worldwide, the report said. More than 120 journalists and another 56
"cyber-dissidents" remain behind bars. "The biggest prisons on the planet didn't
change much: China, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran and Burma," the report said.
Ethiopia is a largely Muslim country of 75 million people of whom about 40 per
cent are Orthodox Christians. It held a national election on 15 May 2005 which
was found by international observers to have been seriously flawed. Since the
election, there have been arrests, protests and even deaths.
"It is perilous to publish anything - even religious issues," said Yidnekachew
Chane, an exiled Ethiopian journalist living in Kenya.
Since October 2005, 63 journalists have been charged. Sixteen of them, including
a female journalist, six months pregnant, remain in jail, facing sentences that
can carry the death penalty, members of the Ethiopian Free Press Association
said. More than 20 other journalists have been forced into exile and more than
200 have been jailed in the last 14 years.
"We demand the unconditional release of all the jailed journalists," Elias Lemma
who worked for the Maebel Weekly Newspaper before being forced to exile in Kenya
four years ago told Ecumenical News International.
The journalists say they live under constant fear of being kidnapped by
Ethiopian secret agents, and deported as has happened with some political
activists and refugees.
Ecumenical News
Freedom of the Press needs eternal vigilance
Editorial (Kenya Times)
May 3- YESTERDAY 76 people were formally charged with terrorism, genocide and conspiracy to topple the government in Addis Ababa.
This paper does not hold brief for those with nihilist tendencies or those who opt to embrace lawlessness to make political statements. But the spontaneity with which events leading to these specific arrests took place dissuades one from outright condemnation of those who were caught up in the melee and later found themselves facing probably the most serious charge possible.
Of course Ethiopia has her own real security fears and parameters for their breach but this notwithstanding, opinion was largely unanimous that the way last year’s post election riots were handled by the Addis government was needlessly too brutal
Besides the fact that these charges concern us in light of the high crimes cited and the probable death penalty involved on conviction, there is an important angle that affects us.
About a dozen of the suspects are journalists, including a pregnant one, detained since last November, in the wake of deadly riots that rocked Ethiopian cities in protest at the outcome of the June national elections which Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and allies won.
Some people could well be inclined to dismiss these serious developments with the argument that such cannot happen in Kenya, supposedly because our democratic credentials are deeper than is the case in Ethiopia.
Termination
Yet there are on and off ominous signs to indicate Kenyans should not dismiss the events in Ethiopia or elsewhere in the region as irrelevant occurrences in a far of land. And of significance to journalists and democratically minded people in the region is that the trials commenced on the eve of today’s World Press Day, two days after a tour of Ethiopia by Japan’s PM Junichiro Koizumi and despite international calls for their termination.
Prime Minister Zenawi said last February that the trials must proceed arguing he could not interfere with the judiciary or the rule of law. Similar arguments have been used here to justify the continuation of criminal trials of about half a dozen reporters on incitement related charges.
For the case of Ethiopia’s arguments for the detention of reporters is an excuse given that the judiciary in these parts is anything but independent. The political motivation behind the arrests has never been in doubt.
Meanwhile, and this is unfortunate given the hopes invested in our country to chart out a correct path when the current government came to power for years ago, Kenya was identified as an emerging tormentor of the press alongside Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda in the region. Whereas there are no reporters jailed yet in Kenya nor any facing treason and terrorism the comparison cannot be dismissed out of hand for the following reasons.
Serious crimes
The political climate has tended to gravitate towards the conditions which set the state against the media. The fact that the government has placed several journalists on other serious crime trial points to that appetite to oppress free expression which is equally demonstrated by the reluctance to expunge anti-media laws from the statute books.
The March 2 ill-advised raid on the Standard Group was the turning point in the relations between the State and the Press. Much as the media has remained vigilant and would not be cowed, open society is the poorer.
We have seen predisposition to demonstrate high levels of intolerance and the readiness to impose self serving definitions on responsible journalism, patriotism and state security, the latter the rationale which ultimately stokes autocratic practices against the media.
There is cause to worry when ministers begin to incite the public against the media striving to portray journalists as ingrates, incapable of professional judgment and bent on sabotaging the motherland. Of course the media in this country as elsewhere is not made of saints and which is why practitioners must remain challenged to observe fidelity to professional and ethical tenets. But where journalists err, it is rarely because they are driven by some unpatriotic zeal to nail their government as appears to be thinking of some authorities where inclination to arm-twist the media is deeply seated.
Journalists Call for Press Freedom in Ethiopia
Nairobi
VOA, 02 May 2006
Majtenyi
report - Download 310k 
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On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, Ethiopian journalists and others in Kenya are calling for the Ethiopian government to release more than a dozen journalists imprisoned following last year's elections and to respect freedom of the press and expression.
Ethiopian journalist Wemdesen Teklu, now a refugee living in Kenya, described to reporters how difficult it is to be a journalist in Ethiopia. "I left my country in 2001 due to just on-going harassment and persecution - if you remember the Addis Ababa university students getting harassed," he said. "So, due to that reason, I was forced to leave my country with the students. I have been in jail many times and I have been also tortured. This is what I experienced in my country when I was in jail. I am writing just the truth.... I did not do any crime."
Wemdesen said Ethiopian authorities have banned all independent media, and that 63 journalists have been charged with treason and other offenses since October of last year. Of those, five were VOA reporters charged with treason in absentia. Those charges have since been dropped.
He said 16 journalists - including a pregnant newspaper editor - remain in prison and could face the death penalty merely, he says, for being critical of the government.
Wemdesen and other Ethiopian journalists living in Kenya are calling for the Ethiopian government to release the imprisoned journalists and respect the country's constitution, especially regarding freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
More than 100 journalists, opposition politicians and supporters, activists, and others who protested the results of last May's elections in Ethiopia face treason, genocide, and other charges. They accused the ruling party of committing electoral fraud to win last year's elections.
Their imprisonment and trials have been condemned internationally, most recently by U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International released a report urging the Ethiopian government to release at least 40 of the detainees, which the organization calls prisoners of conscience.
The secretary general of the Kenya Union of Journalists Ezekiel Mutua was on hand to lend his support to the Ethiopian journalists. "In reality, there is no free press in Ethiopia," he said. "In reality, journalists are jailed for writing any negative reports about the government. In reality, journalists in Ethiopia are being turned into puppets of the regime, and if you do not tow the line, then you are targeted as an enemy of the state."
The Ethiopian government says the journalists and others in jail are guilty of fomenting violence.
Wednesday is World Press Freedom Day
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UN Human Rights Chief Blasts Ethiopia |
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UN condemns Ethiopia over rights violations
April 27 (BBC) Mrs Arbour, who is in Ethiopia visiting prisons, said conditions she had seen were "rudimentary"
and "harsh".
She said it was not right that detainees had been held in custody for a year without bail.
Opposition leaders and journalists are among 111 people who have been denied bail after being accused of genocide.
'In decline'
Mrs Arbour also said she was surprised that such serious charges, which also include treason, were brought after a series of opposition protests following allegations of election fraud a year ago.
On Tuesday, a group of Western diplomats based in Addis Ababa called on the government to release all elected leaders, so they could help with the post-election reconciliation process.
Their trial is expected to resume next week.
Several thousand people were arrested after the protests, in which more than 80 people were killed, after security forces opened fire.
"It is worrying that at best we are in [a] state of stagnation, especially regarding political and civil rights which are in decline after months and years of hope," she told the AFP news agency.
During her visit to Kaliti prison, Mrs Arbour met some of the detained Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) leaders.
She also held talks with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi but said she had received no promises of leniency if the opposition figures, civil rights activists and media workers are convicted of crimes which can be punished by death.
Mr Meles has denied the charges of election fraud and blames the opposition for starting the violent protests, in which members of his Tigray community were allegedly targeted.
His government also points out that his government introduce multi-party elections to Ethiopia after years of military rule.
In the elections, the opposition made huge gains but say they were cheated out of victory.
Two more journalists jailed on old charges
New York, April 25, 2006 (CPJ)—Two more journalists have been sentenced to jail on revived charges under Ethiopia’s 1992 press law, according
to CPJ sources. Wosonseged Gebrekidan, who is
already jailed on antistate charges, was sentenced to 16 months for
defamation on April 18. Freelance writer Abraham Reta was sentenced
yesterday to one year and jailed the same day.
Gebrekidan, editor of the now banned Addis Zena, is one of 14
journalists on trial with dozens of opposition leaders for allegedly
trying to overthrow the constitutional order. They were arrested in a
crackdown following antigovernment protests in November and could face a
possible death sentence or life imprisonment under the country’s
Criminal Code. Since the start of the crackdown, several journalists
have also been sentenced to prison terms on old charges under the press
law. Gebrekidan is already serving an eight-month sentence for
defamation handed down in December . See CPJ’s December 7 news alert:
http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/Ethiopia07dec05na.html.
Many Ethiopian editors have numerous press law charges pending against
them. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told a CPJ delegation in March that
the government had decided several years ago not to prosecute under the
press law, and that this was still government policy. This is despite
CPJ
documentation to the contrary. He said he was not aware that cases
had been reactivated, and that he would look into the matter.
“The crackdown is clearly continuing, and the revival of old charges
against journalists is part of that pattern,” said CPJ executive
director Ann Cooper. “We call on Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to order an
investigation into these charges which contradict
his stated policy.”
Gebrekidan was given the 16-month sentence for a 2002 article which
allegedly defamed the editor of Abyotawi Democracy,
a publication of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The piece appeared in the Amharic
language weekly Ethiop, of
which he was editor at the time.
Reta, who freelanced for a number of different Amharic-language
newspapers, was also jailed on an old charge. CPJ is still investigating
the details
of the case.
Ethiopian army murders, rapes, and kidnaps Sudanese Anuaks
Genocide Watch
(Washington, D.C. 15 April 2006): Ethiopian Army troops that invaded Sudan three weeks ago in search of leaders of the Anuak ethnic group,
partially withdrew into Ethiopia Wednesday under pressure from the several Western governments. However, some of the Ethiopian troops
sent from Dimma, Ethiopia reportedly remain in Sudan, reuniformed as troops of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army. They have reportedly
pillaged up to thirty Anuak villages and carried out mass killings and rapes.
Genocide Watch, Washington, D.C. based chair of the International Campaign to End Genocide, charges that Ethiopian Army troops tortured and
murdered the chief of Pinythiinh village, Sudan when he could not hand over guns that they accused him of hiding. The Ethiopian Army also
murdered five Anuaks in Obwodi village, Sudan (two women, two men, and one child.) Inside Ethiopia, the army killed four Anuaks (three
elders and one child) and kidnapped ten boys in Tado village. Young men have also been kidnapped in other villages and are being held in
Pinyudo, Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Army has systematically raped the women of Obwodi, Pinythiinh, Tado, Nyiuum and other Anuak villages.
Genocide Watch bases its charges on multiple direct Anuak sources in Pochalla, Sudan, corroborated by international organizations and
Western governments.
The Ethiopian Army has carried out massacres against the Anuak since December 2003 that have cost at least 2500 lives. Major oil reserves
have been discovered in Gambella province, Ethiopia, the Anuak homeland. The Ethiopian government is attempting to repopulate the province
with settlers from the Ethiopian highlands, who view the Anuak as racially inferior. Genocide Watch has declared a Genocide Alert.
Contact Genocide Watch: 703-448-0222 or genocidewatch@aol.com
Media leaders condemn crackdowns
The Fourth African Media Leaders Conference, held on 4-7 April in Nairobi, has condemned the rise of media repression in East Africa and the Horn. The statement has now also been endorsed by the SA National Editors Forum.
The statement reads:
The 4th African Media Leadership Conference, held 4-7 April 2006 in Nairobi, Kenya, and attended by leading media executives and editors from 12 African countries, took time to discuss the media situation in East Africa and Horn of Africa. The conference, the first major gathering of pan-African media professionals in this region this year, condemns the rising incidence of media repression in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
The conference
(1) Affirms its solidarity with the media institutions and practitioners in the region and Africa, and their ability to serve their respective societies effectively.
(2) Calls on governments in the region to respect international conventions on Universal Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press, and immediately stop repressing their media institutions;
(3) Encourages governments in the region to engage in constructive dialogue with media institutions and seek amicable ways to strengthen the mass media’s self-regulation initiatives;
(4) Calls on governments and civil society institutions around the world to use any available opportunities to pressure the concerned African countries to respect international doctrines of Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the press; and
(5) Urges pan-African initiatives like NEPAD and the African Union to recognise the Freedom of the Press as a cornerstone of democracy and development.
Over the past six months, incidents of media repression have spelt out a systematic pattern to muzzle media institutions and practitioners in the region. The incidents include detaining journalists without charge or access to the due process of law; charging journalists with “attempted” genocide and high treason simply for reporting political protests; wanton damage to broadcasting equipment and printing presses by government security agents; and detaining and intimidating journalists. Furthermore, a number of countries in the region are preparing new media legislation that includes other pernicious provisions and the introduction of state-run media councils.
Coming at a time when the region, and the African continent in general, are trying to catch the world’s attention – with regard to higher foreign direct investment; more significant role and recognition in global politics; and poverty alleviation – these attacks on the media signify a major setback in political and civil freedoms. Further, they raise questions on Africa’s commitment to democracy, globalisation, and human and economic development.
For more information on this statement please contact Dr Peter Mwesige at +256 77 231 3067 (mwesige@masscom.mak.ac.ug) or Trevor Ncube at +27 82 370 9118 (trevorn@mg.co.za)
* The African Media Leadership Conference is an annual event co-organised by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Media Programme for Sub-Sahara Africa, and the Sol Plaatje Media Leadership Institute, Rhodes University, South Africa. The general theme of the 2006 conference is “South Meets East: Strategic Challenges for African Media”. For more information on this conference, contact Francis Mdlongwa (f.mdlongwa@ru.ac.za) or Jude Mathurine (jude@kas.org.za).
