Eskinder Nega, an Ethiopian publisher, journalist and blogger who is serving an 18-year jail sentence under anti-terror legislation, has been awarded the 2014 Golden Pen of Freedom. The yearly press freedom prize is given by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).
Mr Nega was arrested on September 14, 2011 after publishing an article criticising his government’s use of the 2009 Anti-Terror Proclamation to jail and silence critics. He was sentenced on 23 January 2012 and denounced as belonging to a terrorist organisation.
WAN-IFRA called upon the Ethiopian government to release all journalists convicted under the sedition provisions, saying that the country’s publishers and journalists practice journalism in a climate of fear.
In an opinion piece published in the New York Times, Mr Nega wrote of his imprisonment, “I’ve never conspired to overthrow the government; all I did was report on the Arab Spring and suggest that something similar might happen in Ethiopia if the authoritarian regime didn’t reform,” he said. “I also dared to question the government’s ludicrous claim that jailed journalists were terrorists.”
Source: WAN-IFRA
