Ethiopian journalist flees threat of jail

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - An Ethiopian journalist has fled the country fearing he would be re-imprisoned by the government, the press watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement Tuesday.

Dawit Kebede, the managing editor of the independent Awramba Times newspaper, was sentenced to four years in prison for conspiring to disturb the constitutional order after Ethiopia's 2005 elections, but was pardoned in 2007.

He said he was warned last week that authorities would revoke his pardon and fled to the United States at the weekend.

"Official sources warned him on Thursday of preparations to revoke the conditional pardon that authorities offered in 2007," the CPJ said.

Dawit said he had been tipped off following an editorial in a government-run newspaper accusing him of connections with "terrorist groups" and demanding he be jailed again.

Dawit also feared the Awramba Times, one of only two remaining Amharic-language newspapers critical of the government, would be shut down.

However, Ethiopian government spokesman Shimeles Kemal rejected claims that authorities had threatened to revoke his pardon or close down the newspaper.

"This is an absolute lie, an absolute lie. They have never been subjected to any form of government harassment," Shimeles said.

He said the newspaper was likely to shut down because of dwindling readership, and denied that his government might have a role in it.

"This is a fig leaf of an excuse under the guise of political harassment," he said.

Ethiopia has the largest number of exiled journalists in the world with 82 living abroad, according to the Washington-based CPJ, which honoured Dawit last year for pursuing independent journalism "despite ongoing intimidation."

"(He) has endured all of the Ethiopian government's tactics to silence independent voices, from official intimidation and state-sponsored smear campaigns to the jailing of his staff," the CPJ said.

Ethiopia is one of the world's most restrictive countries for journalists, according to the World Press Freedom Index.

Last week, one of the country's leading journalists Eskinder Nega was charged with terrorism along with 24 other members of the media and opposition.