Authorities in Ethiopia should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Yayesew Shimelis and cease detaining journalists without charge, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The friends told CPJ that Yayesew was brought to court on March 28, and that police were granted six days to hold him in custody without charge. In his report, Yayesew alleged that the Ethiopian government had told religious leaders to prepare 200,000 graves to accommodate deaths from the virus, according to the journalist’s friends and Addis Maleda. The report is no longer available on his YouTube channel, and Yayesew wrote in a tweet on March 27 that his Facebook page had been suspended. In January, Yayesew told CPJ that he had been detained for several hours at the Bole International Airport by federal security personnel, who verbally harassed him and questioned him about his journalism.

Source: Ethiopian News April 01, 2020 18:05 UTC