The Ethiopian government has confiscated the passport of the recently released journalist, Eskinder Nega and banned him from leaving the country to address the Amnesty International gathering, his son said.
Eskinder Nega, 47, was released on February, 2018 after more than six years in jail in a move the government said would foster national debate and widen the political sphere. However, he was re-arrested on March 25 at a party held to celebrate his release and that of other prisoners, and freed again two weeks later.
As a sign of continuing harassment of the journalist, his passport was confiscated as he was just about to board his flight to Amsterdam last night, the immigration officers telling him that it was an order from a higher authority, his son Nafkot Eskinder said.
“I am prepared to go back to prison,” he said in an interview with AFP on mid-march. “What I am not prepared to do is give up.”
“We will continue to press and struggle for freedom of expression and democracy,” he was quoted as saying.
(Photo of Eskiender Nega by Samuel Larsson/Sveriges Radio.)
Update: Eskinder’s passport has been returned to him this afternoon. He was also told that he could travel.
Eskinder Nega banned from leaving country
Is this the kind of Government that really relinquish power to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed? Look the way, the Woyane treated Eskinder Nega after his long years of incarceration without due process of law? What does it tell you this? One must live under the rocks not to understand the vicious and cruel mentality of the TPLF after 27-years. It is time for people inside Ethiopia to take their fate into their hands by any means necessary. As for Ethiopians diaspora community, one does not pin one’s hope on them compared to other diasporas like Kurds, Laotian, Cambodians, Somalis and Eritreans. I would not say they are happy-go-lucky, the most unenterprising and wasteful people. They like to talk inanely about development? The substance of development in Ethiopia is a little bit obscure. Development under Woyane from what to what. Ethiopia at this key juncture, is getting worse before it gets better since Haile Selassie Govt.