By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 26 2017 (IPS)

In the politically-risky world of professional journalism, news reporters are fast becoming an endangered species.

The numbers are staggering: some 1,236 journalists have been killed since 1992, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

In 2016 alone, 48 journalists were killed worldwide – and in the first few months in 2017 there have been 8 deaths. The “deadliest countries” for journalists include Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya and Mexico, where international news organizations took the heaviest toll.

But Inter Press Service (IPS) was not spared the agony either.

The news agency, which has relentlessly covered the developing world for over 53 years, has suffered both under repressive authoritative regimes and also in war-ravaged countries where IPS journalists have either been detained, tortured or beaten to death in the line of duty in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

Richard de Zoysa

But for most surviving families, the tragedy has been doubly devastating because the killer or killers have never been apprehended, prosecuted or convicted in any court of law in their respective home countries—or in some cases their bodies never recovered.

The most glaring example was the fate of 30-year-old Richard de Zoysa, the IPS Bureau Chief in Sri Lanka, who was abducted, tortured, killed and dropped from a helicopter into the ocean – a crime reportedly perpetrated by “death squads”. His bloated body was washed ashore in the suburbs of Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital.

The horrendous politically-motivated crime, which took place in February 1990, is still one of the unresolved murders after 27 long years.

In 2006, Alla Hassan, the IPS correspondent in Iraq, was shot and killed while driving to work in a war zone where killings were routine with little or no rule of law.

And in Argentina in the mid-1970s, two IPS journalists, Luis Guagnini and Roberto Carri, were both abducted at the end of their working day in the IPS Bureau in Buenos Aires – and their dead bodies were never recovered.

In a February 2013 piece titled “Censorship by Murder Will Not Silence Truth”, IPS Regional Editor for Asia Kanya d’Almeida wrote that even though Sri Lanka experienced a “reign of terror” battling two insurgencies in the South and the North in the 1990s, “no one expected that one of its victims would be Richard de Zoysa.”

She described him as “the progeny of two powerful Colombo families, star of the English-language stage, a well-known newscaster and bureau chief of the Rome-based Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, whose dispatches on Sri Lanka throughout the 1980s earned him a reputation at home and abroad as an exceptionally prolific writer.”

Juan Gelman, Director of the Latin American Bureau of IPS, based first in Buenos Aires between 1974 and 1977 and then in Rome, recounts the disappearance of two IPS journalists – Luis Guagnini and Roberto Carri—in the mid 1970s.

“Just days after the funeral, the media received a directive from the government: no more mention of Richard de Zoysa — not in print, not in pictures, not on the radio. If murder would not suffice to silence him, then censorship would have to be the next best thing.”
The kidnappings, like most such kidnappings at that time, were attributed to para-military groups, such as the self-styled Triple A comprising the Argentinian Anti-Communist Alliance —  which was largely held responsible for the murder of over 2,000 trade union leaders, students and leftist intellectuals.

Writing in “The Journalists Who Turned the World Upside Down”, a publication recounting the history of IPS, Gelman says the result was striking: 30,000 “desaparecidos”–  a term which encompasses four concepts: the kidnapping of unarmed citizens, their torture, their murder and the disappearance of their bodies.

“At the beginning of 1975, the Triple A had IPS in its sights, and the difficulties of obtaining information were multiplying,” says Gelman.

In an act of solidarity, then IPS Director General Roberto Savio decided to relocate the Latin American network to Rome, a task shared by four colleagues.

Every day, news arrived from the southern part of South America about killings and “disappearances” that the agency would punctually distribute. Several IPS journalists had to flee and rebuild their personal and professional lives in exile. This was not easy, but many managed, says Gelman.

In the case of de Zoysa, he was murdered on the eve of his relocation from Colombo to Lisbon as the new IPS Bureau Chief in Europe.

As de Almeida recounted: “On the third day after de Zoysa had been bundled into a jeep by six armed men (one of whom his mother Dr. Manorani Saravanamuththu, would identify as a high-ranking police officer in the president’s detail), wearing nothing but a sarong around his waist, a fisherman bobbing about on the Indian Ocean just off the coast of Moratuwa, a seaside suburb south of Colombo, hauled a floating corpse into his narrow boat and rowed it ashore.”

And although bullet wounds and three days in salt water had eaten away at the handsome 30-year-old, his mother, called in by a magistrate defying government orders to “dispose” of bodies without due process, recognised him.

The news sparked a massive public outcry among Colombo’s elite: louder, even, than the collective fury over the roughly 40,000 deaths that had preceded de Zoysa’s in that black decade, wrote de Almeida.

“Just days after the funeral, the media received a directive from the government: no more mention of Richard de Zoysa — not in print, not in pictures, not on the radio. If murder would not suffice to silence him, then censorship would have to be the next best thing.”

His last dispatch from Colombo was titled “Sri Lanka: Nearing a Human Rights Apocalypse.”

In late 1990, at a ceremony held at the United Nations, IPS posthumously bestowed its annual “International Achievement Award” on de Zoysa for his excellence in journalistic reporting and his news accounts of the killings of students by death squads in Sri Lanka.

The killings of journalists have been mostly in war ravaged or conflict-ridden countries. But Sri Lanka was neither– although successive governments were battling insurgencies both in the country’s South and North.

After de Zoysa’s killing, the most prominent journalist to be murdered in Colombo was Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor-in-chief of the Sunday Leader, in January 2009.

Both were unfortunate deaths in the “fog of bloody insurgencies and Sri Lankan politics”, Sinha Ratnatunga, editor in chief of the Sri Lanka Sunday Times, told IPS.

But there was more to follow, including the abduction of editor Keith Noyar and Poddala Jayantha, and the disappearance of journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda.

As a tribute to the missing journalist, the US State Department named Sandhya Ekneligoda, wife of the slain journalist, for one of its “International Women of Courage” Awards.

Ekneligoda was nominated by the US Embassy in Colombo, for her work “pursuing justice in her own husband’s case, as well as on behalf of missing families from both Sinhalese and Tamil communities, as a profound symbol in Sri Lanka’s efforts towards justice and reconciliation.”

Asked about state of press freedom in Sri Lanka since the killings of de Zoysa and Wickrematunge, Ratnatunga told IPS the danger to media freedom in Sri Lanka is when one compares the environment today to what it was– rather than what it should be.

Clearly, media practitioners faced trying times in the bad old days, beginning with serial indictments against editors and publishers on archaic criminal defamation charges around 1995, followed by censorships on military news as a separatist insurgency gathered momentum.

Emergency regulations promulgated to combat terrorism saw the press caught in the crossfire and suffer collateral damage, said Ratnatunga, a former President of the Editors’ Guild.

By the early 2000s, he pointed out, the military had the upper-hand in a civilian Government desperate to end the blood-letting in the country.

The dreaded ‘white van’ (the mode of transport for those abducted) syndrome emerged.

“Journalists who were critical of the military were targeted; some were killed, others abducted and tortured. The LTTE guerrillas (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) fighting for a separate state on the island were equally merciless with those who critiqued them on their turf.”

With the end of the ‘war’ resulting in the capitulation of the guerrillas, the ‘white van’ syndrome began to fade away, but the bitter after-taste remained and political opponents of the then-Government flogged the issue to its advantage, he added.

As all new Governments do, said Ratnatunga, the 2015 Government that replaced the old regime promised the sun and the moon to the media. Sceptical were those who have seen it all before.

Not too long after, ensconced in power and place, the new Government began to lose patience with the vastly expanding media. They began a “Them” versus “Us” labeling policy but the cohabitation Government of the country’s two major political parties, operating under the euphemism ‘National Unity Government’, became a victim of its own intrigue.

He said the Media Ministry, the official Government newspaper group and state television were, on the surface, supporting the Unity Government against the Opposition, but within, tug-of-wars were taking place; so much so, the President appointed a committee of his party loyalists to ascertain why he was not getting due prominence in the state media – a not-so-thinly veiled message to those backing the Prime Minister.

The Sri Lankan media keeps growing; the print media retains its influence, new publications keep sprouting up and television stations vie for ratings with politics and entertainment as their staple diet while social media adds the spice – usually by not allowing facts to get in the way of a good gossipy story, Ratnatunga added.

To have a say in this vast labyrinth, powerful politicians egg on businessmen they have helped amass wealth to start up newspapers, TV and radio stations; and to control this growing ‘monster’ the Government is regulating the issue of frequencies to who they think are politically ‘questionable’ applicants, also embarking on a new initiative to have a Media (Standards) Commission.

Like their predecessors in office, he said, the new Government uses the ‘carrot and stick’ policy. Journalists, given houses, motorbikes and computers are now being offered compensation for political victimization and physical harassment of the past years.

The Sri Lankan media does live in interesting times, Ratnatunga declared.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Excerpt:

The 28 Ethiopian migrants of Christian faith murdered by the Islamic State (IS) on Apr. 19 in Libya had planned to cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of work in Europe.

Commenting on the killings to Fana Broadcasting Corporation (FBC), Ethiopian government spokesperson Redwan Hussien urged potential migrants not to risk their lives by using dangerous exit routes.

Hussein’s call sparked anger among hundreds of Ethiopian youths and relatives of the deceased, who took to the streets in the capital Addis Ababa this week before the demonstration was disbanded by the police, local media reported.

Protestors cited the government’s lukewarm response to the massacre of Orthodox Christians for their outrage, the Addis Standard reported. Later in the week, during a public rally organised by the government in the capital, violence again broke out between security forces and protesters resulting in injuries and the detention of over a hundred protesters, local and international media reported.“Pervasive repression and denial of fundamental freedoms has led to frustration, alienation and disillusionment among most Ethiopian youth” – Yared Hailemariam, former senior researcher for the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (now Human Rights Council)

Almost two-thirds of Ethiopians are Christians, the majority of those Orthodox Copts – who say that they have been in the Horn of Africa nation since the first century AD — as well as large numbers of Protestants.

In the widely-reported incident in Libya, IS militants beheaded 16 Ethiopian migrants in one group on a beach and shot 12 in the head in another group in a desert area. Eyasu Yikunoamilak and Balcha Belete, residents of the impoverished Cherkos neighbourhood in Addis Ababa, were among the victims, it was learnt, along with three other victims from Cherkos.

Seyoum Yikunoamilak, elder brother of Eyasu Yikunoamilak, told FBC that Eyasu and Balcha left their country for Sudan two months ago en route to reach the United Kingdom for work to help themselves and their families, but this was not meant to be.

“I used to talk to them on phone while they were in the Sudan,” Seyoum said in grief. “But I never heard from them since they entered Libya one month ago.” Eyasu had previously been a migrant worker in Qatar and had covered his friend’s expenses with his savings to reach Europe, said Seyoum.

In defiance of the warning of the government spokesperson, Meshesa Mitiku, a long-time friend of Eyasu and Balcha living in Cherkos, told the Associated Press on Apr. 20: “I will try my luck too but not through Libya. Here there is no chance to improve yourself.” Meshesha’s intentions came even after learning about the fate of his friends.

Ethiopian lawmakers declared a three-day national mourning on Apr. 21. The government also expressed its readiness to repatriate all migrants in dangerous foreign countries, the Washington-based VOA Amharic radio reported.

The rally earlier in the week came one month before Ethiopia holds parliamentary elections, the first since the death of long-time leader Meles Zenawi, and current prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn is expected to face little if any opposition challenge.

“We will redouble efforts to fight terrorism,” foreign ministry spokesman Tewolde Mulugeta said in response to demands for action from protesters.

Ethiopia is trying to create jobs so that people do not feel the need to leave to find work, he added. “We’re trying to create opportunities here for our young people. We encourage them to exploit those opportunities at home.”

Nevertheless, disenchantment marked by asserted claims of repression, inequality and unemployment has spurred a series of protests against the regime over the last few years.

These and other issues have prompted the exodus of Ethiopian migrants to Europe, according to several observers. “The idea that the majority of Ethiopian migrants relocate due to economic reasons appears flawed,” contends Tom Rhodes, East Africa Representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists, in an email interview with IPS. Rhodes also maintained that the violation of fundamental freedoms is closely tied with poverty and economic inequality.

In an email interview with IPS, Yared Hailemariam, a former senior researcher for the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, agreed. “Pervasive repression and denial of fundamental freedoms has led to frustration, alienation and disillusionment among most Ethiopian youth.”

“Citizens have the right to peacefully protest,” said Felix Horne, East Africa researcher with Human Rights Watch. “It’s no surprise given the steps government takes to restrict peaceful protests that disenfranchised youth would use the rare opportunity of an officially sanctioned public demonstration to express their frustrations. That’s the inevitable outcome when there are no other means for them to express their opinions.”

The main opposition parties say that the government has failed to create job opportunities, making migration inevitable. The regime, they charge, favours members of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and creates economic inequality.

Recently dubbed an “African tiger”, Ethiopia is one of Africa’s most populous nations with 94 million people (Nigeria has 173.6 million). It has been celebrated for its modest economic growth over the last years. But the average unemployment rate (the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force) was stuck at 20.26 percent from 1999 to 2014.

“The regime allocates state resources and job opportunities to members of the ruling party who are organised in small-scale and micro enterprises,” noted Horne. The CPJ representative agreed. “Ethiopian government authorities tend to reward their political supporters and ethnic relations with lucrative political and business positions” at the expense of ingenuity in the business sector.

In its 2015 report, the World Bank shared this discouraging view. Some 37 million Ethiopians – one-third of the country’s population – are still “either poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty”, the World Bank said, adding that the “very poorest in Ethiopia have become even poorer” over the last decade or so.

The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has estimated that about 29 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line. This explains Ethiopia’s rank at 174 out of 187 countries on the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index.

The Oakland Institute, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation that spotlights land grabs, was recently denounced by Ethiopian officials for its latest report ‘We Say the Land is Not Yours’. According to the government, the institute used “unverified and unverifiable information”.

In a reply to the Ethiopian Embassy in the United Kingdom on Apr. 22, Oakland Institute challenged the government’s claim that ongoing development was improving life standards in the country.

The institute maintained that the government’s development endeavours are “destroying the lives, culture, traditions, and livelihoods” of many indigenous and pastoralist populations, further warning that the strategy was “unsustainable and creating a fertile breeding ground for conflict.”

More than half of Ethiopia’s farmers are cultivating plots so small as to barely provide sustenance. These one hectare or less plots are further affected by drought, an ineffective and inefficient agricultural marketing system and underdeveloped production technologies, says FAO. Several studies indicate that this phenomenon has induced massive rural-urban migration.

According to Yared Hailemariam, state ownership of land has contributed to poverty and inequality. “People don’t have full rights over their properties so that they lack the motivation to invest,” he stressed. The ruling regime insists that land will remain in the hands of the state, and selling and buying land is prohibited in Ethiopia.

Yared also pointed out that the ruling party owns several huge businesses which has created unfair competition in the economy. “The party’s huge conglomerates have weakened other public and private businesses” he told IPS. “Only the ruling party’s political elites and their business cronies are benefitting at the expense of the majority of the people.”

The tragic news of the massacre in Libya came amid news of xenophobic attacks against Ethiopian migrants in South Africa last week including looting and burning of properties. Unknown numbers of Ethiopian economic migrants are also trapped in the Yemeni conflict, according to state media.

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris    

The Southern Africa Litigation Centre, Amnesty International and over a dozen other human rights organisations including the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights have signed an open letter demanding justice for crusading Angolan journalist Rafael Marques de Morais, whose exposés have offended several military officials and other higher-ups.

In their letter, published this week in a Malawian newspaper, the group praised Marques for “his long history of holding the Angolan government to account for human rights abuses and corruption through his insightful, thoughtful and well regarded journalistic investigations” and noted that “for his efforts, he has been arrested and detained multiple times in Angola.”

In the latest effort to silence Marques, legal action was launched by a group of generals over his book ‘Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola’, first published in Portugal in 2011.

The book cites a litany of human rights violations – including killings, torture and forced evictions – that took place in Lunda Norte in northeastern Angola where diamond excavations were taking place. Military officials, diamond miners and private security contractors – named in the book – first attempted to sue Marques for defamation in Portugal but their case was dismissed.

After the book appeared, the author filed a charge with the Angolan Attorney General on Nov. 14, 2011. He called on the authorities to investigate the moral responsibility of the generals for serious abuses. After hearing victims’ testimonies in 2012, the Attorney General set the case aside. New charges were then filed against Marques.

If convicted, he faces up to nine years in prison and damages of 1.2 million dollars on the charge.

“Mr Marques is the recipient of numerous prestigious international awards for his work. He is an equal opportunity human rights defender, working to expose violations no matter who is the accused or accuser,” the open letter writers noted.

Angola, the fourth-biggest diamond producing country by value, has been relaxing restrictions on exploration and development after producers, including South African giant De Beers, cut back operations during the global financial crisis. The move is worrying environmentalists as well as local people and the rise in numbers of anti-government protests is an irritant to the authorities who are keen to make an example of Marques with a successful prosecution.

In his speech as joint winner of the 2015 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expressions in Journalism award last week, one of several international honours he has received, Marques said that the trial would make him stronger.

“It will show Angolans there is nothing to fear and challenge them to hold the authorities to account,” he said in a press interview.

Seven journalists have been murdered in Angola since 1992 and many others intimidated or imprisoned, according to The Guardian newspaper. This month, two activists, Marcos Mavungo and Arao Bula Tempo, were arrested in Angola’s northern oil-producing province Cabinda, hours before an anti-government protest was due to take place. They have been jailed on charges of sedition.

Previous demonstrations have been broken up using what Human Rights Watch call “excessive force” and last year a female student was hospitalised after a beating by police for taking part in a march.

Other signers to the open letter include Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the UK-based Media Legal Defence Initiative.

Edited by Phil Harris    

*The book – Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola – is not yet available in English.

A smashed NTV satellite van in the centre of Taksim Square in Istanbul highlights protesters' frustration with how Turkish media has covered their movement. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
ISTANBUL, Jun 7 2013 (IPS)

Sitting with hundreds of other protesters in the centre of Istanbul’s Gezi Park Thursday night, Arzu Marsh rummages through her backpack to show off what she calls her makeshift “emergency kit”: medical masks, a red spray-bottle filled with a liquid that lessens the effect of tear gas, a scarf and some food.

But perhaps the most important item is what’s sitting in her lap, and, every few seconds, lights up with incoming text messages: her cell phone.

“I’m from Ankara, so all my friends and all my family are from Ankara, and as soon as I put [photos and videos on] Facebook, everyone saw it, and of course they also shared,” Marsh explained, referring to images of recent anti-government protests in Istanbul.

“Now, we are all following…Facebook or Twitter. We are not following any [traditional] news,” she said.

As spontaneous chants of “Everywhere is Taksim! Everywhere is resistance!” spread through the crowd, and a banner reading “Keep resisting Ankara – we are with you” hung overhead, Marsh told IPS that sharing information on social media about protests across Turkey has not only helped keep activists motivated but also built solidarity across political and geographical divisions."We all follow Facebook or Twitter. We are not following any [traditional] news."
--Arzu Marsh

“Yesterday we heard that… there was a [protest] in Rize, so we had an applause for Rize. It was very emotional, and it motivates you,” she said.

Distrust of traditional media

A smashed, bright yellow, satellite TV truck, belonging to one of Turkey’s leading broadcasters, NTV, sits in the centre of Taksim Square. Its doors are ripped off, windows shattered and tires punctured.

It is also covered in graffiti and highlights protesters’ frustration with the mainstream media in Turkey.

At the height of police violence in Istanbul’s Gezi Park last week, most local television networks ignored the events and instead continued with their regular programming, including cooking and travel shows.

While these same stations are now reporting on the protests – and NTV issued an apology for its initial lack of coverage – activists say social media continues to fill an important void and is the primary source of information for many.

“There’s a new, young generation that does not trust mainstream media broadcasts and they seek information that is independent and objective,” explained Emrah Ucar, an Istanbul-based activist who founded a popular social media network, called “Ötekilerin Postasi”, or “The Other Post”.

Indeed, as demonstrations continue across the country against the government’s increasingly authoritarian controls, protesters have developed an elaborate – and often times, humorous and creative – social media network to organise and sustain their protest.

The “Ötekilerin Postasi” now gets 1.7 million clicks per day, Ucar said, and is reaching a more widespread and politically diverse segment of Turkish society than it ever did before.

“What’s most important about social media is making people feel that they are participating in the production of news. When they get this feeling, they make it an issue for themselves and they participate in the commenting and spreading of the news,” he told IPS.

Government policies create ‘chilling effect’

Widespread arrests and detention of journalists, defamation lawsuits and government pressure on critical media outlets and columnists – including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s publicly calling out journalists for their reporting – has had a “chilling effect” on the Turkish media, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Turkey jailed the highest number of journalists worldwide in 2012, often through the use of draconian and easily applied criminal laws. The government has also imposed fines on major media conglomerates, forcing them to sell off assets and downsize their operations, and helped facilitate the transfer of large news outlets to pro-AKP owners.

“We have seen changes in the editorial management of newspapers, firing of critical columnists, and a gradual but consistent shift away from commentary and news that are unpleasant or critical of the government,” Asli Aydıntasbas, a columnist at the daily Milliyet newspaper, told CPJ.

“Newspapers routinely exercise self-censorship and suppress critical information and news—even in the face of declining circulation,” Aydıntasbas added.

According to Selcan Kaynak, a political science professor at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University, the media’s failure to promptly report on the Gezi Park protests reflects its overall refusal to report on issues that are critical of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party-led (AKP) government.

“It’s really, in one word, hegemony that is being established. There are some critical columnists, or independent newspapers, but they’ve been marginalised. There [have] been very strict controls [of what goes] reported and unreported,” Kaynak told IPS.

Still, the fact that there was a complete media blackout at the start of the recent protests in Istanbul was “shocking”, Kaynak said. “They thought, I guess, that by ignoring this, the rest of Turkey…would have no idea, and it would just go by and they would go on with the usual business.”

Social media ‘menace to society’

According to Aslı Tunç, head of the media and communications department at Istanbul Bilgi University, social media helped give a platform to opposition voices in Turkey that were growing online, even before the protests began.

“This didn’t happen overnight,” Tunç told IPS. “Those voices were there already. But the mainstream media did not cover [them], did not give them a voice on their televisions or [in their] newspapers, and they tried to marginalise [them].”

On Wednesday, 29 people were arrested – and later released without charge – in the city of Izmir for allegedly “inciting riots and conducting propaganda” after posting things about the protests on social media website Twitter.

In a speech last weekend, Erdogan himself called Twitter “a menace to society”. He also said “the best examples of lies can be found there”.

The defiant prime minister, who just returned from a diplomatic visit to North Africa and has refused to back down from his aggressive position against the demonstrations, has also called protesters deviants, extremists, and even looters – “çapulcu”, in Turkish.

In response, protesters quickly re-appropriated the word, and are now proudly calling themselves Çapulcu, using it in posters around Taksim Square, and in photos and updates shared online. Protesters even created a website, called ÇapulTV, where they are live streaming from Gezi Park, while an Anglicised version of the word – “chapulling” – has taken on the new meaning of fighting for your rights.

“[The protesters] proved that Twitter, social media, is a very powerful organisational tool,” Tunç said. “The young people especially proved that social media is part of media now. You cannot ignore the power of social media.”

Several Ethiopian publications are coming together to set up a ‘press council’ with the hope of easing restrictions on the media in Ethiopia.

The journalists suggested the idea of the council at a May 3 meeting held at the behest of the Ministry of Information to discuss media reforms in the country.

“The meeting was the first time we have had such a direct and open dialogue with the government over press issues,” Getachew Worku, editor of the independent publication Ethio Mihidar, told IPS. “We have to welcome this development as a positive step to ease press restrictions.”

The press council will be formed by editors of government and independent publications. The purpose of the council is to hold discussions about press restrictions and foster direct and frequent dialogue with the government over such issues.

Worku said there were still many obstacles for the press to operate freely in Ethiopia. He said, for example, that he could not use government printing houses and was forced to use private companies to print his newspaper.

Newspapers in Ethiopia are an important source of news for people like these young men on a street in Addis Ababa. Credit: Terje S. Skjerdal/CC BY 2.0

“This really increases our costs and makes it very difficult for us to operate,” Worku said. “This is unfair considering the government publications can operate at much lower costs and avoid going bankrupt.”

Worku also said a major problem in Ethiopia was the arbitrary distribution of publication licences. “Although it is easy to write about fashion and entertainment, it is very difficult to write about politics,” he told IPS. “If you want to write about politics, it is much harder to obtain a license and there is far more pressure from the authorities.”

Since he launched his publication, Worku said, the authorities have frequently visited his office demanding information regarding his accounts, and he hopes that the meeting and the new council will be able to reduce some of these obstacles.

“This is one of the most mature and useful consultations we have had with the media,” Shimeles Kemal from the Ministry of Information told IPS. “The media brought up many important criticisms of themselves, and also of the government, which we will consider with due weight and respond to in a serious manner as we continue to engage with the media.”

Despite the government’s promises, some journalists are less hopeful it will bring about any change. Independent journalist Anania Sorri told IPS he believed that the government agreed to the meeting and council merely to distract the media from aspirations for real change.

“It is hard to believe the government is genuine about its desire for press freedom,” Sorri said. “Just look at the current situation journalists are facing.”

Sorri’s close friend Reeyot Alemu, winner of this year’s World Press Freedom Prize, is in prison. She was initially sentenced to 14 years after being found guilty of planning terrorist attacks, laundering money and working with terrorist organisations. On appeal, two charges were dropped and her sentence was reduced to five years.

Sorri told IPS that Alemu has health complications, including a breast tumour, gastritis, and sinusitis. And recently, prison officials threatened her with solitary confinement if she leaked information about prison conditions to visitors.

International organisations have long criticised the Ethiopian government for its treatment of the independent media. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that seven journalists are currently in detention in Ethiopia, and that more reporters have fled Ethiopia than any other country, putting the total at 79 between August 2001 and May 2011.

In response to critics, the government has accused many of the journalists it imprisons of crossing a line between journalism and illegal activities. State officials have accused critics of over-simplifying things and failing to understand the real situation on the ground.

One of the most controversial cases is that of prominent blogger and government critic Eskinder Nega. Just last week his appeal was rejected and his 18-year sentence was upheld.

Nega was arrested in September 2011 and charged with plotting an Arab Spring revolution through his writings and a speech he gave at a conference organised by opposition groups. Just before his arrest he had published a piece calling for the government to respect freedom of assembly and to end torture in prisons.

“Because there is no judicial independence, no justice can be found in the courts in politically motivated prosecutions, as shown by the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold an 18-year sentence for Eskinder Nega,” Leslie Lefkow, Ethiopia expert at Human Rights Watch, told IPS.

“The impact of this multi-pronged campaign is that access to news and information remains very restricted for all Ethiopians, and the level of self-censorship and fear of government surveillance is extraordinarily high.”

However, in the case of Nega, one local analyst said he deserved to be punished as he had incited violence and created ethnic tensions in the past. Daniel Berhane, a prominent Ethiopian blogger, told IPS that journalists like Nega were aligned with political parties.

He stated that, “the three newspapers that Eskinder Nega published until 2005 – Askual, Menelik and Satenaw – were characterised by yellow journalism and serious ethical flaws.”

Local journalists say that before widespread anti-government protests following the 2005 national elections, the media climate was free. After the protests, though, the government clamped down on independent media publications as well as civil society groups and any opposition.

Then the government introduced anti-terrorism laws, which have been used to charge journalists who have had any contact with opposition groups or journalists in exile, who according to the government have ties with terrorist outfits.

Several Muslim journalists have also been charged under the anti-terrorism law, after reporting on Muslim protests early this year. Also, newspapers aligned with opposition groups have repeatedly been shut down as the government pressures publishing houses not to print their papers, opposition politicians told IPS.

After the recent meeting with the government about the future press council, attendees told IPS that the government officials said they were tired of arresting media representatives – giving cause for hope that the situation might soon change.

But while journalists try to form the press council and hope the meeting will ease many of the restrictions, it appears the situation remains far from ideal, as journalists remain behind bars and independent reporters face myriad difficulties.

“Press freedom is a luxury for us; the government says we are a developmental democracy state but actually we are just a developmental state,” Sorri told IPS. “They want the development, but just the material part. They want to put food in our mouths, but they don’t want to hear anything come out of our mouths.”

Mohamed Ibrahim Rageh, a journalist who worked for state media, was killed in Mogadishu on Apr. 22, 2013. Analysts say that Somalia cannot protect its officials, let alone journalists. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Abdurrahman Warsameh
MOGADISHU, Apr 29 2013 (IPS)

When journalist Mohamed Ibrahim Rageh was shot by unknown assailants outside his home in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Apr. 22, his name was added to a list of four journalists who have been killed in this Horn of Africa nation since January.

Last year, 18 members of the media were killed across the country, according to figures from the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) – the country’s largest.

But despite efforts by the Somali government, which earlier this year offered a reward of 50,000 dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of persons involved in the murder of reporters, analysts say that Somalia cannot protect its officials, let alone journalists.

Abdirashid Hashi, the deputy director of the Mogadishu-based Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, a non-profit policy research and analysis institute, says there is not much that the Somali government can do for the media.

“Frankly, I do not think that the government is going to do, or is able to do, anything special for any professional group, like journalists. It cannot do anything for its members of parliament, government employees, or National Security Service operatives who are killed day in and day out in Mogadishu. The government can only improve the general security,” Hashi tells IPS.

On Apr. 14, 30 people were killed in bombings near Mogadishu’s courthouse. And in March, a suicide car bomb meant for Mogadishu’s security chief Khalif Ahmed Ereg exploded near the presidential palace, killing 10 people, including a journalist. Ereg was not injured. The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for both attacks.

While the Islamist extremist group has not claimed responsibility for the death of reporters here, it does maintain that those working for government media are “legitimate targets.”

Rageh, who worked for state broadcasters Radio Mogadishu and Somalia National Television, was shot several times as he stood at the gate of his home in Dharkenley district, western Mogadishu.

He died immediately, in front of his family. There have been no arrests.

His friend and colleague, Mohamed Nur Amiin, tells IPS: “We don’t know who will be next and who is targeting us. I leave my house everyday not knowing if I will return safely. And neither does my family know (if I will return).”

According to Reporters Without Borders, an NGO that protects the rights of media workers, Somalia is “one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists.”

A reporter based in Galkayo town in central Somalia, who sought anonymity because he fears for his life, tells IPS by phone: “We place our trust in Allah because we don’t know who is killing us and why we are being targeted. And that is the worst part of it.”

But Hashi says that a lack of adequate resources, scarcely competent government personnel and an absence of effective security institutions are hampering the government’s efforts to improve security in the country.

He says that the insecurity is “part and parcel” of the situation in Somalia and that the media “need to try their best to stay safe as they are on their own, like most of us.”

But Rageh’s murder has resulted in renewed calls for an investigation into the assassinations of reporters here. According to NUSOJ and other international media watchdogs, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), more than 50 reporters have been killed in Somalia since 1992.

“The government has made a firm pledge to root out the perpetrators who target journalists, and now is the time to honour that commitment by ensuring those responsible for Mohamed’s (Rageh) death are brought to book,” said CPJ East Africa consultant Tom Rhodes in a recent press release.

Few cases involving the murder of Somali reporters are brought to court and, to date, no one has been convicted.

Last February the government launched the Independent Task Force on Human Rights to tackle the “culture of impunity” over rights abuses, and “investigate the broadest range of human rights abuses, including the organised killing of journalists and sexual violence against women.”

The new body has a three-month mandate and will produce a report at the end of its term.

But the country’s NUSOJ says they were never consulted on the setting up of the task force and that it is “a mere PR exercise on the part of the government.”

Numerous calls by IPS to Somali government officials remained unanswered and those who did respond refused to explain the status of the body or its investigation.

Hassan Muunye, a political commentator in Mogadishu, says an independent investigation into the murder of reporters is required.

“We hear these calls (for an investigation) from every corner of the world every time a journalist is murdered in Somalia, but nothing seems to be done by the Somali government. Weak as it may be in its capacity to investigate, we have never heard it asking for help to protect journalists,” Muunye tells IPS.

Muunye says despite “the bravery of Somali journalists and their determination to tell the truth,” the ongoing murders of media members here could slowly lead to the silencing of reporters from this part of the world. He says that the killings are “the death of nascent democracy” in Somalia.

NUSOJ secretary general, Mohamed Ibrahim, says Rageh’s murder is another episode in “the nightmare” that Somali reporters live through.

“We have called upon the government to launch an independent investigation into the murders of our colleagues but so far we don’t see any concrete actions by the government,” Ibrahim tells IPS.

Despite the persistent danger to their lives, many journalists say they continue to work in the hope that they will make a positive contribution to their communities.

One journalist from Mogadishu tells IPS: “I have dreamed of doing stories that touch people’s lives and that is what I am doing for the people. I know the price and I am prepared to pay it because it is worth it.”