opinionAddis Abeba — Ahead of this year's World Press Freedom Day, the Ethiopian authorities must do more to ensure press freedom is entrenched both in practice and in law. Since then, there has been marked progress in press freedom because of the authorities' decision to loosen their stranglehold on media operations. Reporters without Borders in their World Press Freedom Index 2019 say Ethiopia, ranked 110 out of 180 countries surveyed in 2018, has climbed 40 places. The current gains in press freedom and the right to freedom of expression are outcomes of years of resistance against repression. With an election scheduled for May 2020, the government must prioritize protection of press freedom and hasten the revision of laws key to achieving this, including the anti-terrorism law, freedom of media law, access to information law and the computer law.

Source: Ethiopian News May 02, 2019 14:37 UTC