AUTHORITIES in Ethiopia’s Somali region have banned 15 media practitioners working for foreign organisations – including the BBC’s and the Voice of America’s (VOA) Somali language services – that they said were operating without the necessary permits.
The move follows a letter written by the federal media regulator Ethiopian Media Authority to regional officials stating it had found out that some international media organisation representatives based in the region were working without the required accreditations.
However, the head of the region’s journalists’ association rejected the claim provided by the authorities for the decision telling a local media outlet that the real reasons were reports by the journalists exposing corruption and impacts of severe drought in Ethiopia’s easternmost region.
Abdulrazak Hassan added that the association has been requesting for licenses to be renewed which should be done every six months.
The BBC’s repeated attempts to reach the region’s communications office have not been successful.
Ethiopia has seen a rapid deterioration of press freedom since a civil war broke out in the country’s northern region in late 2020.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, between November 2020 and August 2022 at least 63 journalists and media workers had been arrested.
