Ethiopia: Journalist sentenced to one year in prison

Getachew Worku

ESAT News (November 15, 2016)

A court in Addis Ababa on Tuesday sentenced a newspaper editor to one year in prison for libel.

A federal instance court in the capital passed the verdict on the case of Getachew Worku, editor-in-chief of Ethio-Mehidar, for an article he published about the Ethiopian Orthodox Church which the court found to be libel against the members of the clergy.

According to a report by Addis Standard, in May 2015, Getachew published an article on an alleged corruption by the clergy at the Saint Mary Patriarchal Monastery in Addis Ababa.

The news comes as no surprise as the Ethiopian regime, one of the top leading jailers of journalists in the world, use all sorts of excuses to jail journalists.

A dozen journalists languish in jail in Ethiopia under trumped up terrorism and other charges.