Amare Aregawi () is an Ethiopian journalist and the founder of Media & Communications Center, which publishes

The Reporter (Ethiopia) ''The Reporter'' (Ethiopia), also known as ''The Ethiopian Reporter'' (Amharic: ሪፖርተር), is a private newspaper published in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It appears in both English and Amharic, and is owned by the Media Communications Centre. T ...

, an Amharic and English newspaper headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is the editor-in-chief of the bilingual newspaper and co-owner of the Ethiopian TV network ARTS TV.

Journalism career

Aregawi was previously in charge of Ethiopia's only public television network, EBC (formerly ETV) following the fall of the

Derg The Derg (also spelled Dergue; , ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military leadership formally " c ...

dictatorship in 1991. In 2008 he was arrested in connection with an article about labor practices that criticized Dashen Brewery, a local beer brand. The brewery filed a defamation suit against the newspaper which led to the arrest of Aregawi on 22 August 2008. He was released shortly thereafter on bail.

Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...

condemned the arrest and issued a statement saying ''"Amare's unjustified arrest exposes the unfairness of legislation that allows journalists to be imprisoned for defamation"''. Shortly after his arrest, and following a series of editorials criticizing the business community, Aregawi was assaulted and left unconscious following a parent-teacher meeting at his son's school. The

International Press Institute International Press Institute (IPI) is a global organisation dedicated to the promotion and protection of press freedom and the improvement of journalism practices. The institution was founded by 34 editors from 15 countries at Columbia Universit ...

connected the attack to his reporting and called on the government to ''"do everything in their power to ensure that Ethiopian journalists are free to carry out their profession without fear of attack".''

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Ethiopian journalists {{Ethiopia-bio-stub