Ethiopian Government Bars Chair of the European Federation of Journalists from Entering the Country

“.........The IFJ (International Federation of Journalists) says that the decision to refuse an entry visa to Arne König, Chair of the European Federation of Journalists, Europe's largest journalists' group, was inexplicable and "smacks of political spite............König, a Swedish citizen, was due to join an IFJ mission that visited Ethiopia two weeks ago.........The mission comes after a far-reaching crackdown on the independent press in November last year, when the authorities detained more than a dozen journalists, issued a wanted list of editors and publishers, and threatened to charge journalists with treason, which is an offence punishable by death. Dozens of journalists went into hiding during the crackdown. The government published a list of those it planned to prosecute, including 17 editors and publishers from eight private newspapers, as well as Kifle Mulat, president of the IFJ-affiliated Ethiopian Free Press Journalists' Association (EFJA), who is now in exile.” (More...)