Ethiopia - Annual Report 2008
Reporters without borders (press release), France - February 22, 2008
... Shiferraw Insermu, a journalist on the Oromo service of state-run ETV suspected of being an informer for the separatist Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), is still languishing in prison after he and his colleague Dhabassa Wakjira were arrested for the first time at their homes in Addis Ababa, on 22 April 2004. The federal high court ordered their release on bail on the following 9 August, but only Shiferraw Insermu was set free. The journalist was rearrested on 17 August and released on order of the federal high court in mid-October. ETV refused to allow him to resume his job and he was trying to find other work when he was arrested for a third time, on 11 January 2005. He has remained in custody since that date, most likely at the central prison known as “Kerchiele”. Dhabassa Wakjira was held without interruption until 2006, as the prison authorities failed to comply with various court orders to release him on bail. He was finally released and has since fled Ethiopia and sought asylum abroad ...