The Ethiopian Ministry of Justice,
in its vaguely worded statement released on a government owned TV
channel on August 4, 2014 disclosed that it is filing criminal charges
against top-selling and very popular privately owned government critic
print media and their respective publishers for “repeated acts of incitement and dissemination of false
rumors intended to cause a violent overthrow of the constitutional order
and to undermine the public trust on the government”. Meanwhile,
the defendants revealed that they heard about their charges from the
media like any ordinary citizens as opposed to receive a formal written
charge which is supposed to be a normal procedure. The list of the
accused privately owned press and their publishers are the following:
* Addis Guday Weekly Magazine, by Rose publishing P.L.C.;
* Lomi Weekly Magazine, by Dadimos Publishing P.L.C;
* Enque Bi-weekly Magazine by Alemayehu Publishing P.L.C;
* Fact Weekly Magazine by Yofa Publishing P.L.C;
* Jano Bi-weekly Magazine by Asnake Publishing P.L.C;
The sixth one is a newly launched weekly newspaper called Afro-Times, which is affiliated to Lomi Magazine.
The
statement claimed that
the decision to lodge criminal charges was taken after several attempts
to convince the magazines to change their practices. It also claimed
that the
public has been "demanding" for legal measures through various
channels. Oh really? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on
me.
Not surprisingly, Ethiopia's Premier assured the US at the US-Africa summit yesterday
( August 5, 2014) that his government is working hard to fight
"terrorism"; err since when unarmed bloggers, journalists, leaders of
civil societies and opposition parties have become terrorists?
Source: ERTA (Ethiopian Radio & Television Agency)
Source: ERTA (Ethiopian Radio & Television Agency)
