Ethiopian Journalists Forum (EJF) is attending the AU meeting in Angola, made a presentation about the current situation of Ethiopia

 MINILIK SALSAWI 

EJF made a presentation about the current situation of Ethiopia including the unlawful arrest of Zone 9 members and Other Journalists . Ethiopia was an agenda and participants were discussing in depth about it. The recent crackdown was something that shocked many. The Head of the EJF delegation said that There were some people crying when we explained what is happening there. By the way we issued a joint statement there. We are also working to submit a letter to AU to work on the case.

EJF Delegation said We also recommended what the AU should do to overcome the problem in Ethiopia.We also meet with AU commissioner and discussed with him about the situation of journalists. We did the same thing with IFEX director. We made an aggement with her to join her org. as a member. We have done a lot of things there. We have distributed a document about the freedom of speech and of the press in Ethiopia to all participants. We explained about what is going in Ethiopia and the way out.

The EJF Delegation also added that We gave detail information about Ethiopian Journalists and Zone 9 Bloggers and the unlawful acts.Also also discussed the situation of Ethio Mihdar newspaper Journalist Ephrem, the journalists experianced a car accident recently. 

The Chairman of EJF Journalist Betr yakob Getahun said that Ethiopian Journalists Forum will become a member of international journalists federation, East African journalists Association, and Ifex. and He said ".. I discussed with the directory of ifex and she promised us to write a letter to organizations to accept us to their membership.We have also made an agreement to work together in the future...

Journalist Betre Yakob Getahun said ; "we have made an appointment with African Union representative to meet and Addis and see what we can do in the future...the meeting was sucssesful for us. We did what we had planed to do. it was our plan to do when we left Addis to show the real situation of Ethiopia and to integrate our association we the international and regional organizations.EJF has got welcome by almost all organization including AU... " 

EJF Delegation said that There was a team comprised of different organization to issue a statement about Zone 9. I hope it will be issued these days. EJF was the coordinator and main actor of the team. A representative of the AU was a part of the team. The team is also to submit a letter to AU to actively react against the Ethiopian government with regarding to zone 9.