Ethiopia gives journalist 18-month jail term for subversion

by Zelalem

By Aaron Maasho

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – An Ethiopian journalist was sentenced on
Friday to 18 months in prison on charges of subversion, his
lawyer said, but is expected to be freed within a week as he has
been in jail since his arrest in late 2015.

Critics say Ethiopia, an important Horn of Africa ally of the
West sandwiched between volatile Somalia and Sudan, regularly
targets journalists for alleged security offences as a way to
stifle dissent and clamp down on media freedoms. The Addis Ababa
government denies those accusations.

Getachew Shiferaw was arrested in late December 2015 and charged
in May last year with involvement in the operations of the
outlawed anti-government group Ginbot 7.

That charge was later dismissed by a court but he was convicted
on Wednesday of undermining state power by trying to prevent a
government official from performing his duties through
collaboration with an anti-government group. The charge was
punishable by up to 10 years in jail.

“The high court’s ruling means he can walk out as a free man next
week because he has already spent 17 months under detention,” his
lawyer, Ameha Mekonnen, told Reuters.

Getachew, formerly a freelance writer for several magazines, was
also editor-in-chief of the opposition Semayawi Party’s Negere
Ethiopia publication at the time of his arrest.

Prosecutors accused him of colluding with a member of Ginbot 7,
which the government has designated a “terrorist” organization,
alongside two domestic secessionist groups, as well as Islamist
groups al Shabaab and al Qaeda in Somalia.

Ginbot 7 was formed by opposition figures who took part in the
disputed 2005 election. They subsequently fled into exile and
launched a rebellion against Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia’s 547-seat parliament does not have a single opposition
politician, and opposition groups accuse the government of
constant harassment and intimidation.

On Thursday, an opposition politician was sentenced to six and a
half years in prison over a series of anti-government comments on
Facebook that the court deemed to have encouraged terrorist acts.

(Reporting by Aaron Maasho; editing by Katharine Houreld and Mark
Heinrich)

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2017. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

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