An Addis Ababa court yesterday again adjourned a hearing in the trial of Zone 9 bloggers Atnaf Berhane, Befekadu Hailu, Abel Wabella and Natnail Feleke. Officials said it had to be postponed because two of the judges were receiving “training.”
The court had been expected to issue a verdict during the hearing, the 37th in the trial. Atnaf Berhane, Befekadu Hailu, Abel Wabella and Natnail Feleke will now have to wait until 16 October to learn their fate.
“We are outraged by this latest postponement, which prolongs the agony of the four Zone 9 bloggers still being held,” Reporters Without Borders editor in chief Virginie Dangles said. “We again call on the authorities to free them at once because they committed no crime.”
Since the arrests of a total of six Zone 9 bloggers in April 2014, the trial has been adjourned 38 times. Two of the six, Mahlet Fantahun and Zelalem Kibret, were released in July 2015 after the justice ministry dropped the charges against them without explaining why.
Arrested under the 2009 anti-terrorism law, the bloggers are accused of “working with foreign organizations claiming to defend human rights” and “receiving funding in order to incite the public to violence via social media.”
Ethiopia is ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.
Source: Reporters Without Borders
No comments:
Post a Comment