Press freedom on a downward spiral
and currency devaluation on the horizon?
Hi everyone,
Happy Easter!
I am writing this week’s edition of Sifter from Norway, where I will be attending SKUP’s investigative journalism conference in the city of Tønsberg this week. SKUP is the Norwegian foundation for investigative reporting.
I will share highlights of that conference in the next edition – there are some interesting sessions lined up on how to investigate war crimes using OSINT (open-source intelligence), another one entitled, ‘What happened in Wuhan’, and data journalism, so look out for the next edition.
This newsletter arrives late in your inbox as I continue to grapple with the concept of time and how it works, as evidenced by me missing a train, a bus, and a boat trip I had booked yesterday. All in a day’s work.
Anyway, here’s what was making headlines last week.
Press freedom on a downward spiral
April is proving to be a terrible month for press freedom in Ethiopia. Journalists are being detained left and right, with one of these arrests (abduction, if you ask me) being recorded by the reporter herself. Yeneta Media reporter Genet Asmamaw managed to record the incident where five federal police barged into her office and forcefully put in her a car. In an audio that has since been making the rounds, you can hear her asking who the people are and where they’re taking her.
She shows incredible bravery, continuing to ask where she is being taken, and saying that she is a journalist as they rain insults and try to intimidate her.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) put out a statement last week that eight journalists have been arrested since the beginning of April. Six of these arrests took place in Addis Abeba, one in Amhara and the other in Oromia region. The conditions of these arrest are grimy; ambushing reporters while they’re moving around in the city or hanging out with friends, forcing them into a waiting vehicle and later taking them to undisclosed or unmarked detention centers.
Remember that update from two weeks ago, on the forced evictions on the outskirts of the capital? Well, a reporter from Ethiopia Media Service, Samuel Assefa, was arrested in the town of Legetafo-Legedadi, where he was covering the incident. What was he later accused of? ‘Attempting to report without authorities’ permission’.
Here’s a few of the accusations made against some of these journalists: ‘using social media platforms to organize youth violence’, ‘provided shooting training to unspecified informal groups’ and…‘mobilizing young people to overthrow the government’.
Six of the eight journalists were still in jail as of the end of last week.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission also condemned the situation in a statement released over the weekend, warning of the ‘chilling effect’ these targeted attacks on journalists, members of opposition political parties and activists may have on the exercise of rights.
The full story in Amharic here, and the statement from CPJ here.
Regional forces declared as ‘officially’ disbanded
Last week’s edition was focused on the unrest in Amhara region that came following the decision to integrate regional (special) forces into the either the military or the police. This faced strong opposition in Amhara region, where different cities erupted in protests and violence followed by internet shutdowns and road blocks.
I wrote on what that looked like in Debre Birhan at the peak of the tensions and what took place in the small town of Mezezzo, in the early morning of April 12, here. Since then, protests have died down, and areas in the region have been calming down.
Over the past weekend, Addis Standard reported on Chief of Defense Forces, General Berhanu Jula’s announcement that, as of Saturday, April 15, regional forces are no more. According to his statement, the regional forces will now be given training in whichever structure they choose to join: national defense force, federal police, or regional police.
The full story in English here.
Updates on Ethiopia’s request for debt restructuring
Discussion between Ethiopian officials and IMF and World Bank representatives was heated last week in Washington, especially on the issue of the parallel market (the bank rate is now 54 Birr to the dollar while in the parallel market it’s going upwards of 100 Birr). This is according to an article by The Reporter, which said World Bank officials are pressuring the Ethiopian government to harmonize the two. Here’s a quote from the story:
“They have been asking the government to undertake a one-time massive devaluation and equate the official market with the black market.”
An insider who shared this with The Reporter, also said that this devaluation is set as a precondition for the debt restructuring that Ethiopia is asking for. The full story here.
If you want to know a bit more on where the country stands in terms of its external debt, read it here, on an earlier update I wrote.
Millions of children are missing school
The result of the war in Tigray, which later encompassed Amhara and Afar regions, has resulted in many crises including one affecting education. According to a report from Save The Children, more than 3.5 million children are out of school in Ethiopia – 2.3 million are from the northern part of the country.
Many schools have been partially or totally damaged throughout the war, including Tigray where 85% of schools, ‘have serious or partial damage, and all public schools remain closed.’
I recently wrote an update on how university staff in Tigray were about to be paid after 20 months of no pay – well, according to this report 2,500 teachers have gone without pay for more than two years.
The story on The Reporter here and Save the Children’s full report, here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, you can help support my work by forwarding this email to friends and family who might benefit from keeping up with whats’s going on.
Note: I go through all the major news outlets, newspapers, online publications, and will at times, include reports, notes on parliamentary sessions, and go through fact checking websites as well. I try to provide links to both English and Amharic sources, and I usually time stamp the video I link to unless I think the whole video is relevant.