At least 12 Ethiopian journalists or media workers have been arrested since May 19 in Addis Ababa or in the Amhara region (northwest), according to colleagues, their employers or international freedom of the press organizations. hurry.
Federal police said in a statement on Friday that they had "identified 111 illegal media outlets hosted on the Internet, working night and day to disseminate false propaganda, to create division between the government and the public, as well as to spread information arousing violence. animosity on ethnic or religious grounds".
“In their midst, ten individuals working to create inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflict, as well as to sabotage the peace and security of the country, have been identified and arrested and are being investigated,” the police added.
These individuals "engaged in hate speech" and "the investigation revealed" that they "were paid to spread false and conflicting information".
The arrests coincided with a "law enforcement operation" launched jointly in Amhara - the country's second most populous region - by the federal government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and regional authorities, during which more than 4,000 people were arrested, according to the local government.
These "are suspected of trying to destroy the Amhara region and Ethiopia", Gizachew Muluneh, a spokesman for the Amhara regional government, said on Wednesday, quoted by the Ethiopian public news agency. ENA (Ethiopia News Agency).
"Among the suspects are members of the security forces operating secretly after accepting an enemy mission as well as people wanted for murder or for inciting violence on social networks," he said, assuring that the campaign "allowed relative peace to prevail in the region".
The Amhara regional forces have supported Abiy Ahmed and the federal army in the war waged since November 2020 against the dissident authorities in the neighboring region of Tigray.
But voices are rising in Amhara criticizing the management of the conflict since a truce concluded at the end of March between the federal government and the Tigrayan rebels who took over most of Tigray in 2021 from government forces.
© 2022 AFP