By Charlayne Hunter-Gault, 19 June 2012 ,guest column
Nowhere across Africa is the message that its
people want a way out of what I call "the four Ds" - death, disease,
disaster and despair - more resounding than among the continent's
journalists. In nation after nation, they are attempting to inform their people of
their rights and encourage them to hold their governments accountable.
For that, many of them are being held accountable in the most draconian
ways.
I have seen this first hand in Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe's regime
has long attempted to conceal the repression of its people. Journalists
have fought back and continue to yell truth to power, although they
still face the prospect of jail as a consequence.
And most recently, I have seen it in Ethiopia, where Eskinder Nega, a
journalist I visited seven years ago in Kalati Prison, along with his
pregnant wife, Serkalem Fasil (who gave birth in prison) is back there
on charges of terrorism. What appears to have been his crime is that he
also continues to tell, if not yell, truth to power, although the
government is actually prosecuting him for what they say is his
membership in a terrorist network that advocates violence. As proof,
during his trial they showed a video in which he questioned whether an
Arab Spring-type uprising could ever happen in Ethiopia.
The government has empowered itself to prosecute what they see as
dissent like this with a sweeping anti-terrorism law that is,
effectively, a weapon that can be used against anyone daring to
criticize the government in a way the government doesn't like.
One journalist who published Eskinder's statement in court was also
convicted, but got a suspended four-month sentence. Dozens of
journalists have fled into exile and six have been charged with
terrorism in absentia, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists
(CPJ).
When I visited Ethiopia earlier this month with a colleague from the
CPJ and the continent-wide project called the African Media Initiative,
journalists we met with told us they all live in fear, calling the
terrorism law a "game changer." One foreigner working in Ethiopia told
me: "There is a red line. The problem is, we don't know where it is."
When we met Simon Bereket, Ethiopia's Minister of Information, he
defended the incarceration of Eskinder and the seven other journalists
locked up with him on the grounds that they were involved in terrorism.
In a polite but firm dissent, he said neither Eskinder nor any of the
other journalists were in prison for what they wrote.
When we asked to see Eskinder and the others in prison, we were told
that it was not likely and that turned out to be the case. But his wife,
Serkalem, who was recently in New York receiving on Eskinder's behalf a
prestigious freedom of the press award from PEN America, told us when
we met her in Addis that Eskinder had asked her to tell us that he was
in no way connected with any terrorist group-there or in the United
States.
She also told us that he said that if the price of telling the truth
was imprisonment, he could live with that. Of course, when the verdict
is handed down - which is scheduled to happen Thursday - Eskinder could
be sentenced to life in prison or death.
Part of the reason for my involvement with journalists and their
issues in Ethiopia and other parts of the continent is to try to present
a much-maligned continent in a light different to that in which it is
often portrayed elsewhere in the world: in a light that makes it clear
that Africans want as much as anyone else to make choices about
themselves and their children in an informed way, and that they have the
same hopes and aspirations for themselves, their families and their
communities as do people in democracies the world over.
Imperfect as many democracies are, their governments do not put
people in jail for words that come out of their mouths and the
freedom-loving desires that live in their hearts. That's why, as an
American, I hope that my countrymen and women who have that right should
get on Ethiopia's case. They should insist that a U.S. government which
is pledged to ensure those rights in America should also help ensure
them in Ethiopia. And I hope they will be joined by freedom-loving
people all over the world, including on the African continent.
But Ethiopia stands as a partner with the United States, in
particular, in fighting REAL terrorists, including Al Qaeda, in a
strategic part of the world. Surely the economic assistance the U.S. has
provided Ethiopia in the past and the $350 million in assistance it is
asking for in 2013 gives it some weight in pressing Addis Ababa to live
up to the same principles enshrined in their constitution as in ours? Freedom of speech is a crucial cornerstone of democracy. It should not be a death sentence.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201206191560.html
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