The Detention of a Young, Brave Journalist. Click To Tweet
OLLAA has recently spoken to the wife of Amir Aman Kiyaro, a 30 year-old Associated Press journalist who was arrested and detained for his reporting on November 28, 2021, under the auspices of Ethiopia’s nation-wide state of emergency.
Amir Aman was born and raised in Finfinee/Addis Ababa. He decided to devote his career to journalism and received his undergraduate degree from Addis Ababa University. He later received his postgraduate degree in Global Journalism from the NLA University College in Norway. Since graduating, he has worked at multiple news organizations, including the Associated Press, where he was working as a freelance journalist at the time of his arrest. He is registered as a journalist with the Ethiopian Media Authority. He is well-known for his reporting on human rights violations, including his reports on violations committed by all parties to the conflict in northern Ethiopia that began in November 2020.
According to Amir Aman’s wife, Sisay Tadele Jote, when she arrived home at around 12:30 pm on November 28th, she found Amir Aman being questioned aggressively by 6 intelligence officers and 3-4 members of the Addis Ababa police force. She reports they kept asking him to give them the files. After about 30 minutes of questioning, they removed him from the house. Although Sisay does not know where they took him during this time, she reports that, after 2-3 hours, Amir Aman called her and told her to “give them the files he had.” The officers then returned to the house, along with Amir Aman, and conducted a search of the premises. Then they arrested Amir Aman.
Following his arrest, Sisay claims that Ethiopian national television stations launched a smear campaign against her husband, accusing him of promoting “Shane” (A term frequently used to refer to the OLA) in his reporting for the Associated Press. This included the airing of a documentary on Walta Television on December 15th, entitled “The Untruthful Journalists Have Been Arrested”.
During the first weeks of his arrest, Amir Aman was frequently questioned by detectives, who pressured him to admit that he had committed a crime. However, he resolutely told them that he was just doing his job as a reporter.
Due to Ethiopia’s state of emergency, which allowed for individuals to be detained without charges for as long as the state of emergency was in effect, Amir Aman was not brought to court until late-January. However, his case was further delayed at that time because the judge was not available. When he finally appeared before the judge on February 23rd, he was denied bail because the police claimed he would seek to intimidate witnesses if he was released. The court also granted the police an additional nine days to investigate his case. On March 4th, Amir returned to court where it was revealed that the detectives had not done any additional work on his case. According to Sisay, “The detectives actually came up with the same excuse as last time […] They haven’t done any work within the 9 days which was granted by the judge, they even brought the same hard copy they had last time; literally no work done.” The judge ordered the police to bring all of their files to the court on March 7th, at which time, they were granted an additional 14 days to investigate his case. As of today, Amir Aman has been detained without charges for 100 days.
Sisay reports that Amir Aman has been critically ill for some time. For the majority of his time in detention, he was kept in an overcrowded cell with poor hygiene. She believes the medical treatment he has received in prison made his condition worse, and therefore, above all else, hopes that he will be released soon so he can receive adequate medical care.
Legal Standards
International law generally protects individuals from arbitrary arrests and detentions, and entitles them to certain due process rights. However, international law does allow States to derogate from certain obligations contained in international human rights treaties during a state of emergency. Such measures often restrict the rights of persons deprived of liberty. It should be noted that the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has held that the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to which Ethiopia is a party, “does not allow for State parties to derogate from their treaty obligations during emergency situations.” Article 6 of that convention sets out that no person may be arbitrarily arrested or detained.
In November 2021, the Ethiopian government declared a nation-wide state of emergency, whose broad powers allowed for the arrest of any person whom officials have “reasonable suspicion” cooperated with a terrorist group (generally referring to the TPLF and OLA) and detain them for as long as the state of emergency was in effect. Amir Aman, alongside numerous other journalists, were arrested under the auspices of this state of emergency, a move which the Committee to Protect Journalists decried as a “pretext to infringe on freedom of expression.”
Following the announcement that Ethiopia’s state of emergency had been lifted on February 15, 2022, there were calls from the international community to release all prisoners who had been detained without charges under the state of emergency within 48 hours, the time prescribed under Article 19 of Ethiopia’s Constitution. Instead, on February 17th, it was reported that Amir Aman would be charged under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law.
There is a global pattern of States using overly broad terrorist laws to arrest journalists and political opponents, including in Ethiopia. OLLAA notes that freedom of expression is considered a fundamental human right. Journalists should not face intimidation, arrests, or detention for exercising their right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.