Ethiopian reporter fights on for justice

Addis Ababa. More than six years in jail have not blunted Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega’s criticism of the government that put him there.

He was released in February, as part of a broad prisoner amnesty, and remains just as defiant, just as determined as when he was locked up for writing critical articles.

“I am prepared to go back to prison,” Eskinder, 47, said in an interview in the Ethiopian capital this week. “What I am not prepared to do is give up.”

“We will continue to press and struggle for freedom of expression and democracy.”

Eskinder’s widely-read columns routinely took his country’s authoritarian, one-party government to task, until his arrest in September 2011, after writing a column predicting an Arab Spring-style uprising in Ethiopia.

Like other critical journalists, bloggers, activists and politicians, he was charged with terrorist offences and later sentenced to 18 years in prison. (AFP)