An imprisoned Ethiopian journalist and blogger, who could face the death penalty for advocating peaceful protests in his Horn of Africa homeland, was honored on Tuesday with PEN American Center’s “Freedom to Write” award.
Eskinder Nega was arrested last year under Ethiopia’s sweeping anti-terrorism laws, which PEN says criminalize any reporting deemed to “encourage” or “provide moral support” to groups and causes the government deems “terrorists.”
Nega is still in jail after a judge in Addis Ababa found him guilty on Jan. 23 of terror charges. He could face the death penalty at sentencing.
Ethiopia has arrested close to 200 people, among them journalists and opposition politicians, under last year’s anti-terrorism proclamation.
Nega was honored at PEN’s annual gala dinner on Tuesday at the American Museum of Natural History, with about 500 PEN members and supporters in attendance.
PEN granted him the year’s PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.
Forty-six women and men have received the award since 1987 — 33 of the 37 honorees who were in prison at the time they were honored were subsequently released.
Accepting the award was his wife, Serkalem Fasil, a free-expression advocate in her own right, who served 17 months in prison for treason starting in 2005 and gave birth to their child behind bars. She won the International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award in 2007.
“The Ethiopian writer Eskinder Nega is that bravest and most admirable of writers, one who picked up his pen to write things that he knew would surely put him at grave risk,” PEN president Peter Godwin said. “Yet he did so nonetheless, and indeed he fell victim to exactly the measures he was highlighting, Ethiopia’s draconian ‘anti terrorism’ laws that criminalize critical commentary.”
Nega has been publishing articles critical of the government since 1993, when he opened his first newspaper, Ethiopis, which was soon shut down by the authorities.
He was general manager of Serkalem Publishing House, which published the newspapers Asqual, Satenaw and Menelik, all of which are now banned in Ethiopia.
Nega has also been a columnist for the monthly magazine Change and the US-based news forum EthioMedia, which are also banned in Ethiopia.
He has been detained at least seven times under Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s rule, including in 2005, when he and his wife Serkalem were imprisoned for 17 months on treason charges for their critical reporting of the government’s violent crackdown of protests following disputed elections, and briefly in February last year for “attempts to incite Egyptian and Tunisian-like protests in Ethiopia” after he published articles on the Arab uprisings.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in