Ethiopia Convicts Two Swedish Reporters of Aiding Terrorism

Ethiopian Court's Conviction of Two Swedish
Journalists

Press Statement
Mark C. Toner
Deputy Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
December 21, 2011
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The United States notes with concern an Ethiopian court’s recent
conviction of two Swedish journalists on a terrorism-related
charge, in which the verdict appears to equate reporting about
terrorism with support for terrorism. The court also found the
Swedish journalists guilty of entering Ethiopia illegally, which they
had not disputed.

We recognize the authority of the judicial process in Ethiopia and
respect the Ethiopian Government’s legitimate concerns about
terrorism and the need to protect the country’s national security.
However, as we have made clear in our ongoing human rights
dialogue with the Ethiopian Government, a free press is an
important element of democratic society.

We will continue to monitor the ongoing trials of journalists on
terrorism-related charges, and will continue our dialogue with the
Ethiopian Government on press freedoms. Source

Also
Ethiopia Convicts Two Swedish Reporters of
Aiding Terrorism

22 December, 2011 (William Davison)
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(Updates with comments from the Swedish prime minister
and Amnesty International starting in second paragraph.)

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- An

Ethiopian court found two

Swedish freelance journalists

guilty of supporting terrorism and

entering the country illegally, said

Jens Odlander, Sweden’s

ambassador to the Horn of Africa nation.

Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson, who face as long as 15
years in jail, will probably be sentenced next week, Odlander said
by phone today from Addis Ababa, the capital. They were
arrested with members of the Ogaden National Liberation Front
rebel group in July. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and
Amnesty International called for their immediate release.

“Our starting point is and remains that they have been in the
country on a journalistic mission,” Reinfeldt said today, according
to a statement e-mailed by the Foreign Ministry. “They should be
freed as soon as possible and be able to rejoin their families in
Sweden.”

Ethiopia’s state minister of communications, Shimeles Kemal,
accused the reporters of undergoing weapons training and allying
themselves “with objectives of a terror organization.”

“They have gone too far so that their conduct did not constitute
pure journalistic activity,” he said today in a telephone interview
from Addis Ababa.

Under Ethiopia’s 2009 anti-terrorism law, “rendering support to
terrorism” can include providing “moral support” or giving advice.

Self-Determination Struggle

Schibbye testified that they entered Ethiopia to report on
Vancouver-based Africa Oil Corp., which has projects in the
Ogaden region. He also said the weapon he was shown holding in
a video taken from his laptop computer was the gun of a hotel
guard in Somalia he planned to interview.

The ONLF has been fighting for self-determination in the ethnic
Somali region since 1984. In April 2007, the banned rebel group
attacked an exploration site operated by China’s Zhongyuan
Petroleum Exploration Bureau, killing 65 Ethiopians and nine
Chinese workers.

“There is nothing to suggest that the two men entered Ethiopia
with any intention other than conducting their legitimate work as
journalists,” Claire Beston, Amnesty International’s Ethiopia
researcher, said in an e-mailed statement from London. “The
government chooses to interpret meeting with a terrorist
organization as support of that group.”

--Editors: Karl Maier, Heather Langan

Courtesy