French journalist Antoine Galindo, imprisoned for a week in Ethiopia, was released Thursday February 29 and is on his way to France, his employer, the specialist publication Africa Intelligence, announced to AFP.

"I'm fine, I'm in good health" and "I was well treated", despite difficult detention conditions, Antoine Galindo told an AFP journalist before his departure.

“Antoine Galindo was released on February 29 after a week of incarceration and was able to leave Addis Ababa to return to Paris,” Paul Deutschmann, editor-in-chief at Africa Intelligence, told AFP.

His release "is a real relief for the entire Africa Intelligence editorial team who can't wait to find Antoine again," he added.

Antoine Galindo was arrested on February 22 in a hotel in central Addis Ababa, in the company of an official of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a legally registered opposition party, with whom he had a meeting.

The latter is still incarcerated.

The French journalist appeared two days later before a judge who ordered his continued detention.

At the hearing, police said they suspected the journalist of "conspiring to create chaos" in Ethiopia.

According to a source close to the matter, she accused him of being linked to both the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), an armed group active in the regional state of Oromia and classified as a "terrorist" in Ethiopia. , and with the Amhara popular militias "Fano", which confront federal forces in the regional state of Amhara.

Local conflicts

Africa Intelligence denounced “false accusations” which “are not based on any tangible element” and an “unjustified arrest”.

Antoine Galindo, 36, head of the East Africa section, arrived in Ethiopia on February 13 to cover the African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa, headquarters of the pan-African organization which had issued him an accreditation.

On Wednesday, Selamawit Kassa, Ethiopian Secretary of State for Communication, indicated that the French journalist had been arrested for having exceeded his accreditation, which authorized him, according to her, only to cover the AU Summit, and for having collected illegally "information on internal political matters" in Ethiopia.

The journalist had been, between 2013 and 2017, correspondent in Ethiopia for several international media.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) denounced "an unjust arrest" which "illuminates the terrible context for the press in general in Ethiopia (... the second worst jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa).

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced an "arbitrary detention", seeing it as "the terrible illustration" of "hostility towards independent journalism" on the part of the Ethiopian authorities who "seek to control the narrative of recent socio-political tensions".

The second most populous country in Africa (120 million inhabitants) and a mosaic of some 80 ethno-linguistic communities, Ethiopia is undermined by several local conflicts, particularly in Oromia and Amhara, the two most populous regional states.

Emergency state

In Oromia, which has some 40 million mainly Oromo inhabitants, federal forces have been confronting the OLA since 2018, born from a split from the OLF when it renounced armed struggle and was legalized this year. there.

In Amhara, a region of around 23 million inhabitants, mainly populated by Amhara people, a state of emergency has been in force since August to try - so far without success - to put down the Fano insurrection.

After decades of repression, press freedom had made spectacular progress when current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, who freed several journalists and opponents.

But the situation has deteriorated again since 2020 and the start of two years of war against the dissident authorities of the regional state of Tigray.

Ethiopia has incarcerated several Ethiopian journalists and expelled several foreign journalists since 2020, but the imprisonment of a foreign journalist is a first in more than three years and the incarceration in mid-2020 lasting more than a month of a journalist Kenyan.

Seen when he came to power as a reformer capable of modernizing Ethiopia after decades of authoritarian regimes, Abiy Ahmed, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, disappointed the hopes placed in him.

In 2023, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Ethiopia ranked 130th in the world in terms of press freedom, down 16 places compared to 2022. According to the NGO, as of January 1, 2024, fifteen journalists were in prison.

With AFP

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