The safety of journalists in Ethiopia has been “increasingly threatened,” with at least 43 of them arrested, imprisoned, or kidnapped in 2024, International Media Support (IMS) says in a report.
In its Journalists’ Safety Assessment Report issued Tuesday IMS said Ethiopian journalists are facing intimidation, detention, and harassment from both state and non-state actors.
The report stated that those in conflict-affected areas faced particular risks, especially in Amhara, Oromia, and Benishangul-Gumuz.
According to the findings, “armed groups arbitrarily detained journalists, confiscated their equipment, and kidnapped them either for ransom or to control media narratives about conflicts,” while authorities detained journalists under what the report describes as “national security and national interest as a justification for threatening journalists.”
IMS stated that three journalists were victims of enforced disappearance in 2024, two of whom remain missing at the time of reporting, including a Benishangul-Gumuz TV cameraperson who was “abducted by armed groups when he traveled back to Assosa with his wife from a family visit to a village 60 km away.”
Armed groups, IMS adds, “stopped the public bus, singled him out, and kidnapped him.”
In Amhara, where militarised conflict between government forces and the Fano militia has continued since 2023, journalists have faced detention and accusations of “aiding illegal forces” or spreading “false information” about the Ethiopian National Defense Force, according to IMS.
The report documents “nine cases of arbitrary detention in Amhara during the extended state of emergency,” with journalists “targeted both by the government and insurgents.”
The report also notes cases of journalists being “taken to government security service personnel and detained in military camps for days.” By the end of 2024, IMS states, “none of the perpetrators of attacks against journalists were tried before the courts.”
Likewise, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Ethiopia among the worst jailers of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa, placing it third after Eritrea and Egypt.
Its 2024 prison census recorded six detained journalists in Ethiopia, five facing “terrorism” charges.
CPJ noted that authorities often use “vague charges or convictions for terrorism or extremism” to imprison journalists.
MG/as/APA