Press TV: Is one of the problems for these journalistic organizations in Ethiopia campaigning for press freedom – and their funding and support often comes from outside from organizations such as yours – the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), so the Ethiopian government can then say, oh look, you’re serving a foreign interest, a foreign agenda instead of supporting a government?
Keita: First of all I want to correct that. CPJ does not fund any press organization around the world.
Press TV: Not you, but there are organizations which do support journalistic organizations or bodies within Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa.
Keita: That is a false argument given the fact that the Ethiopian government relies on extensive external support to fund its own operation and to feed its people. That is just selective outrage and that is a non-issue, really, that is an excuse.
As far as most of the other press unions existing in Ethiopia they are all funded and controlled by the government underhanded. So, they’re not really independent press unions; they are not really campaigning to free the journalists or defending press freedom in the country; they are in fact echoing the government’s own rhetoric around this.
The government has been very good at spreading confusion here and there and they do not have the moral high standard to lecture anybody on journalism given the fact that the state media and the pro-government media regularly prints editorials and columns with naked slander branding independent journalists as terrorists, as traitors, as individuals involved in activities with al-Shabab.The level of propaganda and smear campaigns by state media is absolutely disgusting.
And so it’s hypocritical of them to point the finger at the private press and say the private press is unethical and not reporting truths.
Press TV: What do you think the next step is then because these journalists aren’t getting out of jail anytime soon despite the pressure you and other international organizations put on Addis Ababa (capital)?
Keita: Well, I think the solution is in the hands of the Ethiopian government. They know what they should be doing and it’s sad that it’s going to take longer for them to really realize that they are against history because the trend is towards freedom, it’s a natural impulse.
And even China, which the Ethiopian government is copying – even in China, China is trending towards more freedom because the Chinese leaders are understanding that in order to full economic development they need to relax a little bit.
So, hopefully the Ethiopian government will get it, but in the meantime the longer they keep these journalists the louder the voices for their release will grow.
Jailing journalists is really a statement of fear. We understand that. The Ethiopian government was fearful when the Arab spring begun and that this was in reaction to it fearing that they would face an uprising.
So it’s really a message that they should relax and with all the power that they enjoy already.
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