Media watchdog condemns conviction of journalist

An international media watchdog has condemned the Ethiopian government’s "disastrous crackdown" on the country’s fledgling independent media after a detained journalist was sentenced to eight months in jail on Tuesday. "We are outraged at the prison sentence given to Wosonseged Gebrekidan, and at the continued imprisonment of at least 12 other journalists," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ). Ethiopia’s Federal High Court convicted Wosonseged, former editor of the Amharic-language weekly, Ethiop, of defaming former diplomat Seyoum Habtemariam in a 2002 opinion piece. In the article, Seyoum was criticised for comments he made praising Ethiopia's diplomatic strategy towards neighbouring Eritrea, including its promise to uphold peace accords that ended a devastating two-year border war between the two Horn of Africa countries in 2000. Wosonseged was detained during a mass roundup of journalists and opposition leaders in November after post-election violence flared up in the country. "We call on the Ethiopian authorities to release all of [the detainees] and stop this disastrous crackdown on the media," Cooper said. Wosonseged, who has since become editor of the Amharic-language weekly Addis Zena, did not even write the opinion piece, according to CPJ sources. He was sentenced under Ethiopia's 1992 Press Proclamation, which holds editors responsible for the content of their newspapers. CPJ sources said his lawyer was not notified of the hearing and did not attend the sentencing. Ethiopian authorities were not immediately available for comment.