Ethiopian magazine stops printing amid state of emergency

James Archibald / Cape Town, Oct 26 (DHA) - An Ethiopian magazine said it was ending its print edition because the state of emergency the government imposed this month was making regular publication impossible.

The monthly magazine announced on Facebook yesterday that, “After several ups and downs and management consultations, it is with heavy heart that team Addis Standard announces the unfortunate termination of Addis Standard print edition”.

In a letter announcing the suspension of the print version, Jakenn Publishing, the publisher behind Addis Standard, said that “in the wake of Ethiopia’s recently introduced state of emergency, sustaining the regular monthly publication of the magazine has become impossible. It is therefore with a sense of unease that the management announces the indefinite suspension of the print edition.”

The magazine had come out each month since February 2011 and the publishers said that its presence “immensely contributed to the relative expansion of media diversity in what was otherwise a restrictive environment”.

The digital version of the magazine will continue to operate with “determination as well as in keeping with the well-established tradition of Addis Standard’s principled and rigorous conduct of journalism”.

According to a 2015 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Ethiopia ranks as the fourth most censored country in the world, behind neighbour Eritria, Nosrth Korea and Saudi Arabia.

An annual prison census by the CPJ also found that Ethiopia was in the top 10 for jailing journalists and the committee noted that the “threat of imprisonment has contributed to a steep increase in the number of journalist exiles” and that a 2014 crackdown on bloggers and independent publications led to more than 30 journalists being forced to flee.

Importantly, the CPJ figures were for last year and the recent state of emergency has further worsened the state of press freedom in the country.