Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009journalists in prison: eritreasocial activist. He was arrested at hishome in Ismailiyya following demonstrationsin Sinai to protest the razingof homes on Egypt’s border with theGaza Strip, according to local and internationalhuman rights reports.Accused under the Emergency Lawof such wide-ranging offenses as incitingriots and driving without a license,Suleiman was acquitted in February2008 but not released. At least 13 judicialorders have been issued directingthat the journalist be released.Because the Interior Ministry cannotviolate the court orders outright, ithas instead used the Emergency Lawto circumvent them.Immediately after each order ofrelease—but before Suleiman left prison—theministry issued a new administrativeorder directing his continueddetention. The provisions of the EmergencyLaw are such that the governmentcan use the strategy an unlimitednumber of times. Suleiman has wagedat least one hunger strike to protestmistreatment in prison, according tothe Hisham Mubarak Law Center.Hani Nazeer Aziz, freelanceIMPRISONED: October 3, 2008Aziz, 28, a blogger, wrote a numberof pieces criticizing the state securityapparatus and local religious officials.He also wrote about social, political,and Coptic minority issues. After heposted a link to a novel considered offensiveto Islam, police arrested himon suspicion that he was actually thebook’s anonymous author.Although it became clear that Azizwas not the novel’s author, authoritiescontinued to hold him because of hisjournalism, according to his attorneysat the legal aid unit of the Arabic Networkfor Human Rights Information.His lawyers were prevented from visitingAziz on multiple occasions, mostrecently in July. Despite three judicialorders for his release, Aziz remainedin custody in late year under the country’sEmergency Law. His lawyers saidhe was mistreated in prison and waspressured to convert to Islam. All ofthe material on Aziz’s blog was deletedby an unidentified party.ERITREA: 19Zemenfes Haile, TsigenayIMPRISONED: January 1999The founder and manager of the nowdefunctprivate weekly Tsigenay, Hailewas arrested on charges of failing tocomplete his national service. He waslast seen by friends and relatives in theZara labor camp in Eritrea’s lowlanddesert in 2000.CPJ sources said Haile was releasedfrom prison in 2002 but was assigned toextended military service. His continueddeprivation of liberty was part of thegovernment’s crackdown on the press,which began in September 2001.Ghebrehiwet Keleta, TsigenayIMPRISONED: July 2000Security agents arrested Keleta, a reporterfor the private weekly Tsigenay,while he was on his way to work inJuly 2000. He has not been heardfrom since. Sources told CPJ at thetime that the reporter was being heldin connection with the government’soverall crackdown on the press.Said Abdelkader, AdmasYusuf Mohamed Ali, TsigenayAmanuel Asrat, ZemenTemesken Ghebreyesus, Keste DebenaMattewos Habteab, MeqalehDawit Habtemichael, MeqalehMedhanie Haile, Keste DebenaDawit Isaac, SetitSeyoum Tsehaye, freelanceIMPRISONED: September 2001Eritrean security forces jailed at least10 local journalists without trial in thedays following September 18, 2001.The arrests took place less than a weekafter authorities effectively shut downthe country’s fledgling private press.Authorities accused the journalistsof avoiding the country’s compulsorymilitary service, threatening nationalsecurity, and failing to observe licensingrequirements. CPJ research indicatesthat the crackdown was part ofa government drive to crush politicaldissent ahead of elections scheduledfor December 2001, which were subsequentlycanceled. The private presshad reported on divisions within theruling party, the Eritrean People’sDefense Force, and had criticized theincreasingly authoritarian nature ofPresident Isaias Afwerki’s regime.The journalists were initially heldincommunicado at a police stationin Asmara, where they began a hungerstrike on March 31, 2002, and smuggleda message out of jail demandingdue process. The government respondedby transferring them to secretlocations and has since refused todivulge their health, whereabouts, orlegal status. Several CPJ sources saidthat most of the journalists were beingheld in a secret prison camp calledEiraeiro, near the village of Gahtelay.Among the group of 10 journalistsinitially arrested, CPJ has confirmedone death. Several CPJ sources saidpublisher and editor Fesshaye “Joshua”Yohannes, 47, died in a prison outsideAsmara on January 11, 2007, after along illness. Yohannes had receivedCPJ’s International Press FreedomAward in 2002.In at least three other cases, it wasnot clear whether the journalists werestill alive. Unconfirmed online reportssaid that Yusuf Mohamed Ali, MedhanieHaile, and Said Abdelkader haddied in prison. CPJ continues to investigatethe status of the three journalists.It lists them on the 2009 prisoncensus as a means of holding the governmentresponsible for their fates.The government has ignored numerousinquiries from CPJ and other organizationsseeking information aboutthe health, whereabouts, or legal statusof all of the imprisoned journalists. Inthe rare cases that the government hasresponded, its spokesmen have offered322323