January 27/2003

 THE PLANNED DRACONAIN PRESS LAW IN ETHIOPIA

The EPRDF ruling Ethiopia has presented through its Minister of Information the draft of a new Press Law. This to repalce the previous Law described as restrictive and condemend by all and sundry.

The Minister of Information has arbitrarily taken it upon itself the task of drafting the ethical rules that are supposed to guide journalists. It has not also consulted the independent journalists on the contents or spirit of the draft Press Law while opting to impose the same on them. The draft of 36 articles clearly indicated the EPRDF's intention of:

 * imposing strict control over the press;

 * making it hard and difficult for independent journalists to fulfill their tasks;

 * blocking the import of critical Ethiopian or foreign newspapers and magazines printed abroad;

* forcing the closure of the majority of the independent newspapers and replacing these by tose controlled by the State directly and indirectly;

 In Article 6 (section 5,subsection 1), for example, it is stipulated any publication which "undermiens the sovereignty of the country" shall be prohibited. The same applies to any publication " which deliberately falsifies great historical truths" (s/s 5) or "which weakens and undrmiens the effort being made to strengthen the spirit of patriotism" (s/s 8). The field is left free for the government to intepret such articles any which way it pleases so as to bring critical journalists to court and prison.

 A detailed reading of the draft Press Law proves beyond any doubt that the EPRDF is still pursuing its old idea of imposing absolute control over the press and the media as a whole. It is to be noted that the EPRDF has already restricted Press Freedom and used license fees, bail fees,hiked price of paper, high postage rates,etc in order to drive the newspapers out of business and had achieved some success too.

 SOCEPP calls on all democratic forces and all those who support the freedomof the press to roundingly condemn the draft Press law and to call on the EPRDF:

 * to withdraw this draft;

* to rrespect the rights of the journalists and to let them have their say on laws and rules that govern their work or ethical standards;

 * to release all imprisoned journalists;

* to stop the charade of presenting State owned newspapers as "independent" ones, and

* to respect the basic rights of the Ethiopian people.

SOCEPP