ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - A newspaper editor in Ethiopia has been arrested after his publication reported that a local brewery firm sacked its employees, a media watchdog said Tuesday.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - A newspaper editor in Ethiopia has been arrested after his publication reported that a local brewery firm sacked its employees, a media watchdog said Tuesday.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Amare Aregawi was arrested last Friday in Addis Ababa and transferred to a prison 750 kilometres (470 miles) north of the capital.
Police were also looking for the newspaper's deputy editor and the reporter who wrote the article last month citing two former employees of the brewery as saying they were wrongfully dismissed, RSF said.
"Amare's unjustified detention exposes the unfairness of legislation that allows journalists to be incarcerated for defamation," RSF said in a statement, calling for his immediate release.
The brewery company had sued the newspaper for libel.
Government officials were not immediately available for comments.
Ethiopia was only removed from Reporters Without Borders' blacklist of media offenders in May, having been labelled "an enemy of the internet" along with Zimbabwe.
Source: Reuters - By Salah Sarrar
