🚔   Mass arrests and beatings: how Ethiopia went from celebrating journalists to jailing them

Politics

Hundreds of media workers have been detained, often on terror charges, or forced into exile by Abiy Ahmed’s regimeWhen Ethiopia was chosen by the United Nations to host the global celebrations for World Press Freedom Day in May 2019, it held a glitzy ceremony in the capital, Addis Ababa, attended by nearly 1,000 people.The prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, had come to power a year earlier promising to end decades of repression and usher in an unprecedented era of freedom. Exiled news outlets were invited back to Ethiopia, journalists were released from prison and a host of new publications sprang up. ...

The Guardian     May 05, 2025