He is one of Ethiopia's most critical journalists. Muluken Tesfaw is in Europe and too scared to return. He doesn't want to share his location, but talked to DW about press freedom declining dramatically in his country.
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According to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), released late last year, the number of journalists imprisoned in Iran, Vietnam, and Ethiopia increased in 2015. The report said that in all three countries a climate of fear for the media persists, with many of those released continuing to face legal charges or harsh restrictions, including forced exile.
DW: Why did you flee your country?
Muluken Tesfaw: I just came to Europe, because I wanted to participate in the World Press Freedom Day celebrations on May 3rd in Helsinki. I was representing journalists from my country there.
After that, I got many messages from family members and friends. They strictly warned me not to come back to Ethiopia. They said, they were questioned by different security officers and unknown people, and the manager of my newspaper was also held by police in the eastern part of Addis Ababa. And, for many other reasons that I can't talk about now, I am obliged to ask for asylum and legal protection, here where I am.
As a journalist, what did you have to go through back in your home country?
I tried my best for the development of a free press in Ethiopia. Since 2012, I have worked as a columnist, reporter, editor and editor-in-chief in different newspapers like Ethio-Mihdar and Yekelem Qend and I've been featured on many other websites. While doing my job, I was jailed and tortured in 2012. And last year during the elections, security officers followed me.
Whenever I went to my home or came out, there were people around - that's why I had to hide in a monastery near Lake Tana. I was in hiding there for about two weeks. After the elections I returned to Addis. Since then I got a lot of intimidating phone calls and I was also physically attacked. I reported these intimidations to the human rights council and wrote about it in social media and in the newspaper. In my articles, I always speak about human rights violations, press freedom and so forth. I highly criticized the regime.
What does that mean for your fellow journalists back in Ethiopia, what can you tell us about their situation?
Frankly speaking the press environment there is locked. Last year alone, more than 20 journalists and activists were forced into exile. Dozens of newspapers and magazines were forced to close down by the regime. The government might give you a license, but after you have it, there is no fertile ground towork with the license. I think the international community can understand that the press environment in Ethiopia is much more in danger than ever.
Why do you think is the government so sensitive to some of the news coverage that you do?
I just try to investigate facts, but there are still so many challenges. The government is totally autocratic. In a totalitarian government like in Ethiopia, it's the nature of such regimes to be prohibitive. Sometimes they want to be seen by foreigners as being more democratic and liberal, but practically they are very autocratic. That's the nature and behavior of the Ethiopian regime.
Interview: Eunice Wanjiru
8 films featuring journalists' fight for freedom of expression
On World Press Freedom Day (3.5.2016) we're honoring those journalists who've fought for their right to freedom of expression by looking at eight films telling their stories.
Image: Bild: BR/Wiedemann & Berg Film
Razor's Edge
The 2016 winner of Deutsche Welle's Best of the Blogs (The Bobs) prize for citizen journalism, the documentary "Razor's Edge" examines the situation that many secular bloggers and writers face in Bangladesh after attacks have left numerous people dead at the hands of religious extremists, including four in the last five weeks, because of their writing.
Image: Nastiker Dharmakatha
Frame By Frame
"Frame By Frame" follows four of Afghanistan's new crop of young photojournalists, who're learning how to shoot stories after years of living under a regime which banned photography. After a screening at the US Embassy in Kabul, seven journalists from the local TOLO news were killed in a suicide bombing, driving home the dangers these journalists face every day.
Image: Film Fprout
All the President's Men
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were two journalists working for the "Washington Post" who led the investigation of US President Richard Nixon's role in the Watergate hotel break-in that eventually led to his resignation. The pair wrote of their experience in "All the President's Men" which was made into a film by Robert Redford.
Image: Warner Bros./dapd
Good Night and Good Luck
Filmed in black and white to capture the atmosphere of broadcast journalism's early days "Good Night and Good Luck" stars George Clooney and focuses on tv newsman Edward R. Murrow's fight to expose the tactics employed in the US by Senator Joseph McCarthy in his 1953 "Red Scare" campaign to uncover "Communists" in the government and celebrity circles, a label which ruined many careers at the time.
Image: Kinowelt
People vs. Larry Flynt
The lawsuit by Reverend Jerry Falwell against Larry Flynt, the publisher of the nude magazine "Hustler" serves as the backdrop of the 1996 film the "People vs. Larry Flynt." The film about the controversial pornography publisher shows his clash with religious institutions and the law.
Image: dpa
Forbidden Voices
Three young women bloggers are the focus of Zurich-based director Barbara Miller's documentary (2012). From Cuba, China and Iran respectively, Yoani Sánchez, Zeng Jinyan und Farnaz Seifi use social media to bring awareness to the world about life under the dictatorial regimes in their homelands. Their work gets so much attention that they end up risking their lives to get the stories out.
Image: Das Kollektiv
Burma VJ
Danish Filmmaker Anders Østergaard focuses on the drama that unfolded in Burma in 2007 after Buddhist nuns and monks took to the streets to protest drastic price increases. After the protests turned against the country's military leaders, international news teams were kicked out of the country and filming could only be done in secret.
Image: flickr/Steve Rhodes
Die Spiegel Affaire (The Spiegel Affair)
Germany's "Der Spiegel" news magazine published an article about the sad state of the West German military in 1962, an article which brought out such an immense rage in Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauß that a search of the magazine's office was conducted. The arrests of editors led to an uproar among citizens who saw it as an attack on press freedom and protested, as this ARD film portrays.
