Eskinder Nega is an Ethiopian journalist and blogger who has been jailed seven times by the Ethiopian government on convictions for treason and terrorism.
Early life
Nega was born to highly educated parents, his father having done graduate work at Rutgers University and his mother at the American University of Beirut. They eventually divorced and his mother, with whom Nega lived, opened a clinic. Nega attended Sandford School in Addis Ababa. Nega moved to the United States in 1980s where he attended college, then studied economics at American University.
Career
Nega returned to Ethiopia in 1991 after the Marxist Derg was ousted by EPRDF forces. He founded his first newspaper, Ethiopis, in 1993.
2005 treason conviction
As editor of the newspaper Satenaw, Nega was arrested on 28 November 2005 following demonstrations against the results of the Ethiopian general election on 15 May 2005. Nega was charged with the capital offenses of treason, "outrages against the Constitution" and "incitement to armed conspiracy". Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression", and called for his immediate release. The group also protested the "poor and unsanitary" conditions of his detention at Karchele prison. Nega was found guilty and served seventeen months' imprisonment before being released by presidential pardon at the end of 2007. Following the conviction, Nega's license to practice journalism was revoked and his newspaper was closed by authorities in 2007. He instead he began to publish online.
2012 terrorism conviction
Eskinder was arrested again along with four politicians on 14 September 2011 after publishing a column that criticized both the Ethiopian government's detainment of journalists as suspected terrorists and its arrest of Ethiopian actor and activist Debebe Eshetu. Ethiopian anti-terrorism legislation prohibits "any reporting deemed to 'encourage' or 'provide moral support' to groups and causes the government deems 'terrorists'. Nega and his co-defendants, including Andualem Aragie, were accused of involvement in Ginbot 7, a group that was recently added to Ethiopia's list of terrorist organizations. In November, he and his co-defendants were accused by state media of being "spies for foreign forces". Nega was found guilty of terrorism charges on 23 January 2012. On July 13, 2012, Nega was sentenced to 18 years in jail on charges of terrorism. In 2013, a UN panel found Nega's jailing a violation of international law. After delaying a decision on seven occasions, Ethiopia’s Supreme Court upheld Nega's 18-year sentence on May 1, 2013. On July 24, 2013, Nega's "Letter from Ethiopia’s Gulag" was published as a New York Times op-ed. In January 2018, the prison holding Nega was announced to be shut down, with political prisoners freed in order to "foster national reconciliation". Nega was only allowed freedom if he signed a confession saying that he was a member of the Ginbot 7 group designated terrorists by the federal government; but Nega refused, saying that it was a false confession. Eskinder Nega was freed on February 14, 2018, along with several other political prisoners. and he has launched a newspaper named ethiopis ኢትዮጲስ a weekly amharic newslaper in ethiopia in 2018/19 and leading astruggle about the ownership of addis ababa. On April 25, 2020, he was once again arrested by Addis Ababa Police on grounds that are yet to be specified but released the same day. In June 2020, Nega was put in jail in the same year, during the which started after was killed.
