Introduction
The role of the print media in developing democracy as well as combating corruption and malfeasance has been significantly hindered and constrained for a long time due to the undemocratic nature of many governments in Africa—Ethiopia was one example during Meles Zenawi’s era—and the various tactics used to repress press freedom (Stapenhurst, 2000; Bach, 2011). Despite indicators of progress in certain developing nations in terms of press freedom (Singer, 2011; Mwesige, 2004), several countries, Ethiopia in particular, have been considered to be lagging in terms of allowing journalists to practice their profession freely.
During Meles Zenawi’s administration, Ethiopia was consistently ranked first by international agencies for arresting, harassing, and torturing journalists, as well as restricting press freedom (Amnesty International, 2008; Human Rights Watch, 2006). The regime of Meles Zenawi has been described as “authoritarian,” even though the government claimed to be democratic, but the regime’s relationship with the press has remained a point of contention in academic and empirical studies.
According to Foucault (1995), one can identify what form of government one has by listening to him talk about the type of prison he has in his nation. This study describes how Ethiopian private press journalists suffered a variety of hardships while the government imprisoned them in various facilities across the nation.
This phenomenological investigation of the trials, ordeals, and tribulations of private press journalists during Meles’ era is especially significant because, as Confucius says in “The Analects of Confucius” (Legge, 2018, p.13), studying the past is necessary for defining the future.
The participants have shared their distressing memories of the general scenario of the jail houses where they spent years of their lives. According to one participant’s account, the prisons were structured in such a way that convicts were tormented by their psychological memories even after they were released and left the facility.
Theoretical framework
Schutz’s “Life World Theory”
This study draws on the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of phenomenology, particularly Alfred Schutz’s “Life World Theory”, to better understand the lived experiences of private press journalists who suffered at various prison facilities under Meles Zenawi’s rule in Ethiopia.
Schutz (1967) took the idea of Inter-subjectivity, a term originally coined by the philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), and defined it as: “the basis for living and sharing the understanding of the life-world with others” (p.124). For Schutz inter-subjectivity refers to “…person-to-person social interaction, in our day-to-day experience as human beings with others connected by actions, influences, ideas, etc., in the course of understanding and being understood by others, in mutual attempts in making sense of the world and others” (Schutz, 1967, p. 125).
According to Schutz “… our direct experience is formed in the life world, the past sediments in it, the present takes form in it, and the future is molded from it. Therefore, we cannot understand social interaction without the life world” (1967, p.123).
Schutz further elaborated his idea of “inter-subjectivity” in his theory in the following manner: “I assume that all that makes sense to me makes sense to all those with whom I share the life world. My actions make sense, and I suppose that others are interpreting them meaningfully as well, and I make sense of what others do too. In these reciprocal acts of giving and positing meaning to yourself and others, inter-subjective social life is built. It is also the social life of others.” (Schutz, 1967, p.123).
Vargas (2020) also describes Schutz’s idea of inter-subjectivity as ”…basis for living together—with others—in specific dimensions of time and space and for sharing the understanding of the life world with them. Through inter-subjectivity we refine the stock of knowledge by validating or adjusting it to subsequent experiences where the stock is only partially originated by personal experience” (p.422).
The study used Alfred Schutz’s theory of the North American Tradition, which emphasizes “how people perceive social phenomena” rather than the European approach, which concentrates on “the core of the human experience.” Schutz, a native of Europe, immigrated to the United States a year after the German invasion of Paris in 1938. He lectured at the Exile University in New York, which later became the New School for Social Research, and established himself as an emigrant refugee scholar, just like many others did at that time. Despite his European birth, Schutz’s theory was seen as a North American tradition (Walsh, 1967, p. xvii). The study analyzed, based on Schutz’s definition of Life-World Phenomenology, what is being experienced, rather than “attempting to unearth the essence of what is meant by the phrase” that the participants were trying to describe.
Another theoretical grounding used in the present study in exploring the prison life of private press journalists is the hermeneutic phenomenology. Hermeneutic phenomenology is a theoretical underpinning of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, IPA (Tuffor, 2017). Hermeneutics is defined as the “art and science of interpretation” for this study (Ezzy, 2002, p. 24).
Hermeneutic phenomenology is both a theoretical perspective and a technique, or a strategy or plan that lies behind the methodologies applied in a given investigation (Crotty, 1996). This study employs Hermeneutics phenomenology and more specifically Paul Ricoeur’s (1976) “Interpretation Theory” as a guide. The theory will be used as a lens for evaluating the prison life experience of private press journalists in Ethiopia.
Authoritarian democracy
Arblaster (1994) states that Authoritarian Democracy is a type of democracy that aims to reflect the interests of society and is run by the governing elite of an authoritarian state.
According to Arblaster (1994), the idea of Authoritarian Democracy was originally conceived by Italian fascist political theorist Giovanni Gentile and used by Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini (1994, p.48). Soucy (1967), citing Maurice Barrès, a major fascist influencer, asserts that authoritarian democracy was the only genuine kind of democracy, rejecting liberal democracy as a forgery. According to Barrès, authoritarian democracy entailed a spiritual bond between a country’s ruler and its citizens, and real freedom was achieved by “heroic leadership” and “national force” rather than individual freedoms or parliamentary limitations (Soucy, 1967, pp. 87–90).
In his discussion of how authoritarian regimes control the media, Schedler (2013) lists restrictions on communication channels, including prohibitions on private ownership in the form of state monopolies on print or electronic mass media; postproduction restrictions on media content, including censorship, license revocation, beatings, arrests and assassinations of journalists, harassment or other forms of pressure; and restrictions on means of production (Schedler, 2013).
Robert Dahl in his well-known book “On Democracy,” argued that in the twentieth century, tyrannical rulers sometimes veiled their reign with a shadow of “democracy” and “elections” because of the attractiveness of democratic concepts (Dahl, 2000, p.49). This appears to be true regarding interpreting the era of Meles Zenawi’s political control in Ethiopia for twenty years (1992–2012). Meles Zenawi was widely seen as an authoritarian leader, who also constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press and expression.
In this regard, a 2010 Freedom House research indicated that 35% of the world’s states allow press freedom, 33% have a “partly free” press, and the remaining 32% lack press freedom, even when their constitutions promise it. Even in its 2018 examination of the international press scenario, Ethiopia is classified as being in the lowest tier (Freedom House, 2018).
Of course, Ethiopia was held up as an example of how, despite having “critically awful” human rights records, its leader Meles Zenawi was able to achieve economic growth. For example, in The New York Times September 19, 2012 issue, under “The Opinion Pages - Room for Debate,” the editor specifically accuses Meles of arresting and torturing journalists in his country, citing a Human Rights Watch report from 2010. “How should an influential country like the United States negotiate relationships with authoritarian regimes that have improved living standards in their countries, like Kagame in Rwanda and Zenawi in Ethiopia?” the editor asks after labeling Meles “authoritarian” (Ibid. 2012).
Bach (2011) who conducted a thorough examination of the ruling EPRDF party’s political position concluded that it is “authoritarian.” He says the following:
Since 1991 and the arrival of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) into power, Ethiopian ideologists have maintained revolutionary democracy (Abyotawi Democracy in Amharic) as their core doctrine. The notion inherited from the struggle (1970s–1980s) aims at legitimizing a political and economic structure that de facto implies the resilience of authoritarianism (ibid. p.643).
That means that, according to Bach’s assessment of the EPRDF’s philosophy, the term “authoritarianism” might be applied not just to those who have seized power through a military coup or without a democratic election, but also to those who have concealed their power under the appearance of democracy. One method to understand such governments is to look at how they “handle” their country’s media and journalists.
This study argues that the concept of Authoritarian Democracy can be related to the context of Ethiopian politics during the era of Meles Zenawi’s nearly quarter of a century rule of the nation. International human rights organizations accused Meles of “deceiving the world” as a democratic leader by simply putting the rights of freedom of press and speech on paper when in reality he was a true authoritarian whose government should be accused of committing numerous crimes and human rights violations in Ethiopia (Human Rights Watch - World Report, 2002; Committee to Protect Journalists, 2002).
Theoretically, this study is informed by the literature on the concept of Authoritarian Democracy in its relation to press freedom as well as by examining its contribution to the challenges and hurdles that journalists can face while performing their tasks under such an authoritarian regime.
Literature review
Press freedom under Meles’ rule
A country is considered democratic if it meets both contestation and participation requirements (Dahl, 1998). Indeed, there is no greater definition of “democracy” than this, because contestation and involvement have never existed in Ethiopian regimes (Freedom House, 2018).
When Meles Zenawi took control in 1991, the public expected and predicted that Ethiopia would enter a new and better period of democracy. The forecast was reinforced when Ethiopia’s new Constitution, which guarantees freedom of opinion and expression, was approved in 1995 (FDRE Constitution, 1995 E.C., Art. 29).
Indeed, many journalists and media employees had hoped that Meles’ rule would encourage press freedom by enabling them to criticize and uncover wrongdoings by politicians and others from the start. But their optimism was short-lived, as the regime continued to detain, torture, and threaten journalists (Amnesty International 2001, Human Rights Watch, 2001).
In the twenty years of Prime Minister Meles’ rule of Ethiopia, hundreds of private press journalists were arrested, tortured, or forced to shut down their newspapers and magazines; and some managed to flee from the country in fear of persecution (Amnesty International 2002, and 2008; Human Rights Watch 2001, 2005). Reports that had been made by international agencies throughout the world also routinely criticized the dictatorship of Meles Zenawi as “one among the predators” of freedom of the press.
Following Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ascension to power by toppling the Derg regime, several international and human rights organizations expressed concern about “unlawful” arrests and torture of Ethiopian independent press journalists (Amnesty International 2002, 2008; Human Rights Watch, 2001, 2005; Reporters Without Borders, 2001; Committee to Protect Journalists, 2001; Freedom House, 2011; UNHCR, 2001).
Despite the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech and thought, Amnesty International reported in its April 1998 report on Ethiopia under “Journalists in Prison - Press Freedom Under Attack,” that at least 16 journalists had been imprisoned at the time, bringing the total number of journalists imprisoned in the previous year to more than 200. It revealed that approximately 200 private press editors and reporters were imprisoned on various occasions, with several of them being detained multiple times (ibid. 1998, p.1).
The journalists were held according to the article under the Press Law, which was enacted in October 1992, 17 months after Meles Zenawi’s government took office.
Many scholarly publications as well as analyses on the rule of Meles Zenawi’s lack of press freedom also appeared (Alemayehu, 2003; Skjerdal, 2009; Dagim, 2013; Meseret, 2013). The government, on the other hand, accused the journalists of being “criminals and saboteurs” (CPJ, 2011; Freedom House, 2012); they were also branded as war and destabilization provocateurs, and some were even designated as terrorists (Abiye, 2011; Fortin, 2015; VOA, 2012; Human Rights Watch, HRW, 2015; Fesmedia, 2011).
All those international human rights organizations accused Meles of “deceiving the world” as a democratic leader by simply putting the rights of freedom of press and speech on paper when in reality he was a true authoritarian whose government should be accused of committing numerous crimes and human rights violations in Ethiopia (HRW - World Report, 2002; Committee to Protect Journalists, 2002).
Pausewang et al. (2002), for example, praised the Constitution for providing a democratic platform for all citizens, despite its flaws. The following is what the academicians had to say about the FDRE Constitution of 1995:
The Ethiopian Constitution of 1995 provides for a democratic structure of governance in the country. This is indeed an important innovation in the history of the Ethiopian state structure that one should not underestimate. There may still be room for some improvements, but in principle, this constitution sets the legal foundation for a full-fledged democracy. (Pausewang et al., 2002, p.230)
After an extensive examination of Meles Zenawi’s regime by various scholars in a book titled “Ethiopia - Since the Derg,” Pausewang et al. concluded that the Ethiopian Constitution of 1995 provides for a democratic structure of governance in the country; however, democratic institutions are not allowed to operate in the spirit of democracy (Pausewang et al., 2002, p.230).
“Hell” of Ethiopian prisons
The trajectory of history, and particularly that of Ethiopia’s socio-political scenario, was shifted when the military junta, known as the Derg, overthrew Emperor Haileselassie from his throne in 1974. This marked the beginning of the nation’s dismal journey. Uncountable numbers of people from all walks of life were imprisoned at numerous detention facilities across the nation, particularly in the capital Addis Ababa, under the Derg, turning the entire nation into one giant prison.
Abera (2005), a state minister during the Emperor era and the author of “In the Lion’s Den”, which presents an account of the prison life of officials of the emperor incarcerated by the Mengistu regime, affirms that the regime even converted the stately palace which had been used as a royal residence since the reign of Emperor Menilik II, into a prison.
The TPLF-led administration of Meles Zenawi, which toppled the Derg regime in 1991, had also continued to build or use ancient cave-like prisons, such as Maekelawi, Kaliti, Ziway, and other jails across the nation, to toss individuals in there and allow them to suffer after the oppressive Derg regime fell. It was also observed that people continued to be imprisoned and through other sorts of persecution and torture during the reign of Meles, as stated by Dowdon (2008), “The fact that Hitler committed genocide did not make Stalin a saint” (p. 5) (Wubeshet, 2016; Wosenseged, 2011).
Indeed, many journalists and media employees had hoped that Meles’ rule would encourage press freedom by enabling them to criticize and uncover wrongdoings by politicians and others from the start. This optimism was short-lived, too, as the administration proceeded to imprison, torture, and threaten journalists up until Meles’ untimely death in August 2012, at which point his successor Hailemariam Desalegn took over as president (Amnesty International, 2001; HRW, 2001).
The years of Prime Minister Hailemariam (2013–2018) were truly “not good years” for many Ethiopians, as uprisings and revolts occurred across the country (Aaron, 2014; Gettleman, 2016; Warner, 2016; Ademo & Smith, 2018; Allison, 2018; Jones, 2018). The protests began in 2014 and took an unexpected turn when they pushed the country into a crisis, prompting Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to proclaim a state of emergency in 2015, and then pushed him to announce his departure from office on February 15, 2018, after nearly two years of fruitless attempts to quell the protests. Hailemariam Desalegn resigned following years of upheaval in Ethiopia, leaving a problematic human rights record behind (Burke, 2016; Maasho, 2014).
In January 2018, a new leader, Dr. Abiy Ahmed, came to power after two weeks of Hailemariam’s resignation. Dr. Abiy was a member of the OPDO Politbureau, one of the ruling party’s coalitions, but he was a fresh face to many Ethiopians with a new political outlook that promoted “National Unity” in contrast to the EPRDF’s “Ethnic-based politics” (Keane, 2019; Roth, 2018; Burke, 2018).
When Dr. Abiy came to power in 2018, after over a quarter-century of drama, he requested people to forgive him for all “his party” EPRDF had done during those years of turmoil (Reporter, 2018; Reuters, 2018; Tewodrose, 2018). However, the public continued to demand that at least the primary perpetrators of severe crimes against the nation and individuals be brought to justice. Private press journalists who were persecuted by Meles Zenawi’s dictatorship are also part of the popular demand for justice.
In this context, Birhanu Tsegaye, who served as attorney general during Dr. Abiy’s rise to power, informed the media that the police had found seven secret detention facilities in Addis Abeba alone where Meles’ regime’s secret service operatives tortured political inmates (Reuters, 2019).
In 2004, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRC) also reported that there were 120 prisons throughout Ethiopia and that practically all of them were considered locations of detainees’ pain and misery (Wubeshet, 2016, p.53). Numerous crimes, including rape and murder, were perpetrated in the overcrowded prisons. Wubeshet (2016) noted that it was tragic that “people of various calibers, including politicians and journalists, were incarcerated in those awful areas with scandalous criminals” (Ibid. p.54).
In this regard, the study examined several works that can be regarded as historical accounts because they were written by individuals who were made to endure a variety of gruesome situations in those jails.
One of them, Wosenseged (2011), wrote a book called “Yekaliti Mistroch” (Secrets of Kaliti Prisons) in which he described his horrifying experiences at the Maekelawi and Kaliti prisons. According to Wosenseged (2011), his experiences in prison and his pain were “the most traumatic incident he’d ever had” (p.14). He claimed to have spent eight years in prison and was unable to adjust to the appalling conditions he was in. He was a journalist who had been charged with “producing wicked propaganda” that endangered public order, but he also accused Meles’ administration of punishing and degrading private press journalists by imprisoning them alongside violent offenders with murder and rape convictions (Ibid. p.15).
A book titled “Mogach Ewnetoch” (Challenging Truth) by journalist Wubeshet Taye was also consulted in this study. Wubeshet (2016) describes the terrifying situation he encountered at three separate prisons, Maekelawi, Kaliti, and Zeway, in a biographical account of his lived experiences in several jails throughout the Meles era.
For instance, Maekelawi prison was defined by Wubeshet (2016) as a location where one can brutally suffer all suffering and where all prisons were built to torture those who were sentenced to get into them. At the Central Investigation Agency, where he was initially detained, he was kept in a unique space known as the “8th House”.
Another author, Kiflu Yakob, recounted the unpleasant scenes he saw at several Addis Abeba prisons in his book “Yegna Neger” (Our Story), which was published in 2000. The author relates the horrific experiences he and his coworkers endured, as well as what they saw when imprisoned at various points in time, particularly in the infamous Maekelawi prison.
According to Kiflu (2000), both the Maekelawi and Kaliti prisons’ cells might be compared to an imagined “hell.” He claimed that the iron rod and corrugated sheet jail buildings were built specifically to torture inmates with the scorching sun during the day and the icy cold at night (ibid. p. 222).
Journalist Sinidu Abebe (2006) on her part published a fascinating biographical piece titled “Kerchele Prison - in an insider look” about one of Addis Ababa’s jails. In Kerchele Prison, several female inmates were charged with political crimes, and some of them were only 15 years old, according to Sinidu (2006). The judge ordered that female inmates who appeared in court underage be given hospital certificates to verify their age, but for more than three years they were ignored in the prison. No one, not even the courts, had ever inquired about the young female convicts who were arrested (Sinidu, 2006, p. 19).
The five books listed above, which were written about the gross conditions in Ethiopian jails, were accessed by this study and discussed. To get a clear picture of the situation at the time and a solid understanding of prisons, the research study carefully examined the writers’ descriptions of them. This provided the knowledge needed to adjust the interview questions posed to research participants so that they would be in line with the realities of Ethiopia’s Meles era.
Methodology
The study employs Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a methodology as it allows to “present and write the participants’ lived experience as it is; i.e., quotations from participants - how they describe things and how they see the phenomenon they encounter.” It also assists the study in “…focusing on a small number of persons and going deep to develop the detail and exploring the problem in an open-ended fashion” (Creswell, 2013, pp.138–139).
According to Alase (2017), “IPA is being used as a methodological approach in many qualitative research studies as it helps to investigate and interpret the ‘lived experiences’ of people who have experienced similar (common) phenomena, in addition to allowing researchers “to develop bonding relationships with their research participants” (pp.11–12).
Although IPA has its data analysis steps - aligned more with hermeneutics phenomenology and being used for an interpretative analysis of the study - this study adopts Pietkiewicz and Smith’s (2014) four stages of inductive analysis for the interpretation task. In this regard, familiarity, topic grouping, emerging theme analysis, and write-up are the four steps of analysis established by Pietkiewicz and Smith (2014) and used in this study (pp. 13–14).
Therefore, the study describes and interprets the interview data gathered from the participants through semi-structured in-depth interviews using thematic analysis and IPA with a qualitative phenomenological approach. Because the goal of IPA is to learn about the participants’ perspectives, the process includes the researcher’s interpretative activity, sometimes known as “double hermeneutics” (Tuffour, 2017, p.4). In other words, the researcher’s interpretation of experience is just as important as the subjects’.
The discussion of findings is reported “thematically across the individuals” (Ferm, 2004; Friberg, 2001; Carlsson, 2011), therefore the presentation and interpretation of the findings are based on the themes designed for the data-gathering process.
Research questions
The following two research questions are posed by the study and are addressed in this article:
Research Question 1: How do private press journalists describe the persecution they were subjected to by the police and secret service officers as a result of practicing journalism?
The question aimed to discover how the participants were treated by the police and secret service agents, as well as what role they played in their suffering in prison.
Research Question 2: How do private press journalists’ portray their suffering in prison houses?
The study’s examination of the participants’ first-hand accounts of their time spent in various detention facilities will shed light on the authoritarian nature of the Meles era and its true scope.
Type of data
The type of data employed in this study is primary data, which consists of text transcribed from interviews conducted with private press journalists and is used to understand the phenomenon under investigation in this study.
There are two options available to research with this kind of data. The first sort of data is called a “Face-to-Face” or “One-on-One” interview since it was done in person with journalists from the private press who are either aware of or impacted by the topic being studied to get the necessary information.
Additionally, online interviews with journalists from the private press who were living abroad at the time were done for the study. Skype and other internet tools were used to conduct the interviews, which enabled face-to-face communication with the participants.
Sampling procedure
This study identified 12 private press journalists available to participate in one semi-structured in-depth interview between December 2020 and January 2022. The study uses the purposive sampling method to identify a more narrowly defined group for whom the research issue is relevant. Purposeful sampling, according to Creswell (2016), “is the act of selecting participants for a qualitative project by enlisting individuals who can help explain the study’s key phenomena” (p.109).
When performing a phenomenological examination, this research used sample data from “… only a few folks who have experienced the phenomenon” (Starks and Trinidad, 2007, p. 1374) - and who can provide a thorough account of their experience that might be enough to identify its core elements.
According to Starks and Trinidad (2007), the typical sample size for phenomenological investigations is 1 to 10 people.
Flick (2007), on the other hand, claims that in qualitative studies, interview sampling “… is frequently done to know the right persons who have expertize and relevant experience for the study” (p.234). Further, “…sampling in interviewing should mean locating the right people and the right information they bring with them,” Kvale (2007) adds, “and the specific number of interviewees essential for a study depends on the nature of the research” (p.5). As a result, this research study selected respondents after performing a thorough review of their prior records.
Data collection procedure
This study applies Reushle’s (2005) principles of Connectivity, Humanness, and Empathy (CHE principles) relating to the ethical and methodological advantages of semi-structured interview research practices used to gather data.
Brown and Danaher (2019) elaborated on Reushle’s CHE principle, based on which: “Connectivity is accomplished by being attentive, by acknowledging the participants’ answers, by maintaining eye contact, and by using body language suggesting they’re open to discussion. Humanness refers to this study as “…providing feedback, being engaged in conversation, and expressing his or her humanity” (p.78). Brown and Danaher (2019, p.80) added: “A researcher could include the humanness principle in a conversation by employing an informal tone, sharing a personal tale, and injecting humor”. Empathy is the final principle. “A researcher exhibits empathy by displaying humility and listening to the participants without casting judgment,” according to Brown and Danaher (Ibid. p.81).
In general, this study employed CHE concepts to establish a rapport with the participants and make them feel at ease.
Participants’ profile
This study applies a qualitative phenomenological research design as it allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the reality of the phenomena that occurred during Meles Zenawi’s era in Ethiopia by looking at the lived experiences of private press journalists who faced a variety of difficulties and tribulations at the time. The study drew on the participants’ lived experiences with their demographic information listed below under Table 1.
Table 1. Participants demographic breakdown during Meles Zenawi’s rule of Ethiopia.
No | Name | Educational status | Title/position | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Participant 1 | MA | Editor-in-chief | Imprisoned |
2 | Participant 2 | BA | Editor-in-chief | Imprisoned |
3 | Participant 3 | BA | Editor | Imprisoned |
4 | Participant 4 | BA | Editor | Imprisoned |
5 | Participant 5 | Advanced Diploma | Editor-in-chief | Imprisoned |
6 | Participant 6 | BA | Editor-in-chief | Imprisoned |
7 | Participant 7 | Diploma | Editor-in-chief | Imprisoned |
8 | Participant 8 | BA | Editor-in-chief | Imprisoned |
9 | Participant 9 | BA | D/Editor-in-chief | Imprisoned |
10 | Participant 10 | BA | D/Editor-in-chief | Imprisoned |
11 | Participant 11 | MA | Editor-in-chief | Imprisoned |
12 | Participant 12 | BA | Editor | Imprisoned |
This research employs a purposeful sampling method, according to which 12 journalists are chosen, which is believed to be an adequate sample for phenomenological research (Creswell, 2013; Starks and Trinidad, 2007) that necessitates a deep examination of participants’ lived experiences.
The study participants are chosen based on their lived experience, and data is collected through in-depth interviews in a semi-structured fashion. In qualitative phenomenology research, a semi-structured interview is a typical means of acquiring data.
Results and discussion
The three major themes that participants describe in their responses to the study question are (a) “Life in Prison” (b) Tortures, and (c) Affliction. As a result, the study divided them into three subordinate themes for interpretation, which are: (a) Getting into hell (b) “A place to lose humanistic demeanor”, and (c) “The filthy, biting bugs”, under the major themes.
Life in prison
In 2004, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRC) reported that there were 120 prisons throughout Ethiopia and that practically all of them were considered sites of pain and misery for inmates (Wubeshet, 2016). Numerous crimes, including rape and murder, were perpetrated in the overcrowded prisons. Wubeshet (2016) noted that it was tragic that “people of various calibers, including politicians and journalists, were incarcerated in those awful areas with scandalous criminals” (Ibid. p.54).
In this regard, this study finds that private press journalists were forced to undergo different forms of persecution and suffering at the hands of police and secret service officers while being detained at various prison houses in the country.
“Entering prison”
The participants first gave the researcher broad details of the prison houses where they had been imprisoned and had witnessed various sorts of misery and afflictions. The study first analyzes one of the participant’s descriptions of his initial prison interactions, which he claims occurred at the Central Investigation Bureau, where he was thrown into a dark, tiny room where he couldn’t stand or sleep properly.
According to him, the prison homes’ walls and roofing were made of corrugated iron sheets, which got so hot during the day that they felt melting down into vapor. A toilet room was built adjacent to the cell where he was imprisoned, and the foul odor that emanated from it was too much to stomach in the afternoon. As a result, the majority of inmates developed nasal and throat infections, while some developed asthma. He recalls that the darkness of the room rendered him unable to see his own hands and that he was only allowed to see the sun for 30 min every three days. He would only be out of the room for interrogation, which generally occurs after midnight.
This participant also had another prison life experience at Kaliti, where he was held in a cramped chamber with about 200 other inmates. It was often difficult for them to touch the floor with their feet, and the small room was filled with convicts who couldn’t fit as they were forced to go to the toilet tiptoeing over other prisoners’ legs and chests. The room was crammed with people accused of murder, rape, and theft, and regime officials ordered it that way on purpose to demoralize and frustrate opposition politicians and private journalists like him.
Some of the participants mentioned that the particular jail resembled hell on earth in comparison to the prison they were in. Being taken to prison had offered them the opportunity to participate in the most gruesome adventure imaginable. For instance, participant 2 was imprisoned together with people who murdered, raped innocent toddlers and girls, and committed cold-blooded crimes. Surprisingly, he observed in prison that those criminals had far more privileges in terms of all services rendered in prison than his peers. This may be why politicians and journalists refer to themselves as “prisoners of conscience.“Over a hundred inmates were crowded into the prison room where he entered, and they could only sleep horizontally. He tried on multiple occasions to sleep on his back or lay down on his chest, but he couldn’t because the room was set up to torture them horribly.
The presence of only one toilet room for more than one or two hundred inmates was a nightmare for these participants. All detainees may have died in a matter of days from cholera or any similar outbreak if it hadn’t been for God’s miracle. In the morning and at night, they were only allowed to use “the only toilet room” for ten minutes. It’s easy to imagine how difficult it would be for the convicts to use the toilet while their cellmates waited for their turn at the door.
For instance, one participant spent time in four separate prisons across the country. He was originally apprehended at the Central Investigation Agency in a room known as “The 8th House” (). The room was completely black, and the brick walls kept any outside noise out, making it even more terrifyingly quiet every day and night. He was imprisoned for 90 days in that room, which was one of the only four of its kind in the Agency compound. These rooms are specifically for political detainees. This participant was accompanied by a member of the opposition political party in his little and horrifyingly built cell. They couldn’t even talk to one other because of the room’s coldness and quietness. They attempted to get warm because being flung and bearing such a horrific circumstance was difficult. For a normal human being, being imprisoned in that chamber for even one day, let alone ninety days, is excruciating.
After ninety days in prison, the participant was transferred to Kaliti prison and got locked up alone again, this time in a little room named “The 6th House” (), which also housed other private press journalists. Because Meles’ regime deemed private press journalists to be political prisoners who had committed major crimes against the government, they were not allowed to mix with other detainees. The prison was a restricted area, and only jail guards were permitted to enter it. Security agents patrolled the small compound where private press journalists and political prisoners were imprisoned at all hours of the day and night. This participant was allowed to get out of that small compound only when visitors came once or twice in a month. For more than two years, he had been languishing in a dark chamber inside a small complex, while murderers and rapists enjoyed all privileges that the government gave in the large prison facility. He was also imprisoned at Zeway prison in a gloomy room known as “The Number 8” (), where he spent the next seven years in torment.
Participant 4 was under solitary confinement at the Central Investigation Agency and Kaliti prisons for 8 years, and in those years she was refused access to medical assistance, books, or any other reading materials, and for the most part, held incommunicado.
The many detention camps in Ethiopia where the other participant was detained each had their distinct characteristics. For him, like for the other convicts, being imprisoned at the Central Investigation Agency’s prison was the most terrifying experience of his life, as he was locked in a dark room that resembled an animal cage for months. He had been dumped there for months, and every minute of it felt like an eternity to him. He was being treated unfairly in comparison to other inmates who had committed significant crimes such as murdering family members or raping children.
The most harrowing experience he had, which was considerably worse than his time at the Central Investigation Bureau, was at a jail camp in Assossa town, Benishangul Regional State, around 800 kilometers from the capital, Addis Ababa. The sweltering sun in Assossa town, combined with the dreadfully cramped chambers with an uncountable number of inmates, rendered the detention center where he was held an earthly hell. It was impossible for a newbie to Assossa town to even breathe properly while sitting beneath the shade of a tree, let alone be crammed into a small space with over a hundred criminals.
One of the participants was jailed in a tiny dark room where he couldn’t see a flash of light to enter on the day he was captured. He was only permitted to see the sun for fifteen minutes every other day for the next three days. He couldn’t see the sunlight easily because he was trapped in a dark chamber for three days, so he had to shield his eyes with a scarf or a jacket.
The other participant was imprisoned eight times and couldn’t even acclimatize to the dreadful situation he was in at the time. He was humiliated and degraded for months after being locked up among dangerous criminals charged with murder and rape. Because of his protests against being iron shackled whenever he was transported to court, he was frequently confined to gloomy chambers for weeks as a punishment.
Security agents took him to the Gerji Police Station initially. They tossed him in a jail where other violent criminals were also incarcerated. In such a prison cell, the sole light source was candlelight, and incoming prisoners were obliged to pay one hundred birr for a place to sleep. He paid the fee to the “Cabo” (the prisoner’s chief) and was given permission to sleep on a cement floor in one of the room’s corners, where only the most fortunate could do so.
He was originally thrown into a prison cell filled with convicts accused of theft, rape, and murder. The prison room was dark and smelled like a toilet room that hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. He couldn’t find enough room in the room to sleep over on the first day, so he sat in a corner next to a tin can full of urine. He tried tucking his head between his legs to sleep, but it was futile. The next day, several inmates were moved to different quarters, and he was given a place to sleep called “Deboqa.” Deboqa was a term used in prisons to describe sleeping on one side of the body.
“Become a prisoner in one of your country’s jail houses if you want to gain a true view of your country,” when this participant recalls the situation of the prison houses where he was imprisoned, that says it all. He was initially detained at a police station near Piazza, and the prison cell into which he was thrown could hold no more than six to eight individuals, but he discovered approximately fifty inmates in his cell. He was imprisoned and forced to live in a cramped room with dangerous and notorious criminals for nine months.
He was initially taken to the Central Investigation Agency, where he was subjected to horrors he never imagined would happen in his lifetime. The cops transported him to a location where he was given over to the secret agents who had ordered his arrest in the first place. They then threw him into a pitch-black room with only door holes for illumination. He could view the day in light for thirty minutes every day. He was imprisoned in such a torturous room for months, where he was interrogated by the agents at night, and then transferred to Kaliti prison, where he was allowed to see the light of the day.
Initially, she was transported to the Central Investigation Bureau, where she was placed in a cramped cell with two other female inmates. She became scared when she saw the prison’s exterior building, which resembled a large furnace designed for wicked intentions. It features a short corridor through which two people cannot travel at the same time, and all apartments are built with large stones, much like a military barricade. She and her fellow inmates can only see light throughout the day when they go out to the small courtyard in the front for thirty minutes or to use the restroom. They were kept in their small chamber for the rest of the day, only allowing light in via small gaps in the window and door.
Tortures
One focus of this study’s theme was the participants’ actual experiences, particularly the torturous ones they had experienced in such prison institutions. A variety of reflections from the study participants reflected the anguish and torment they experienced while in various prisons during the period.
“Torture homes”
Detention institutions around the country during Meles’ era were described by one participant as “torture homes” rather than “correctional facilities” since they appeared to be put up for such purposes. Security officials working for the regime utilized these facilities to torture opposition politicians and private press journalists.
According to him, government secret operatives arrived at night in many of the prisons where he was held and began torturing him with heinous cruelty that no one could comprehend. They hung him upside down and used an electric wire to remove his underpants for hours until blood flowed all over the floor. Outside the torture room, more officers assisted him in returning to his cell each time. They made him suffer by attempting to break every single bone in his body.
He had seen many opposition politicians go through various types of torture and suffering, and he was amazed at how they managed to keep going until he went through what he had seen others go through in prison. Many detainees were crammed into one small room, making it simpler for the cops to torture him and his cellmates at any hour of the night. He recalls that detainees, including himself, were frequently brought by the police late at night to the security agents’ room, where they were tortured until the morning and then returned bleeding all over their bodies. Those who were severely injured and required immediate medical attention were not permitted to be treated outside of prison.
Another participant had seen hostages whose bodies, particularly their legs, had withered as a result of the physical pain they had endured, and listening to their agony every night was excruciating to him. He was familiar with the prison and did not feel fortunate to have survived such a torturous ordeal. It was because his detention was being closely monitored by several foreign organizations, human rights delegations, and local non-governmental organizations. At least once a month, they paid him visits and checked on his condition. As a result, they were unable to find a suitable environment at the prison in which to physically harm him.
It was infuriating to him to recall the misery and torture he faced during his eight years in the Kaliti and Zeway prisons, places where “guys are put into even animals don’t deserve to get there,” according to him. For him, going to prison was like going to hell because it was a place where he had the “chance” to go through all types of torturing experiences in life. When he was imprisoned in the Central Investigation Agency, he was secluded and kept in a dark room where he was only allowed to see light for fifteen minutes each morning and night when he went to the lavatory. The guards offered him something that appeared to be food, but which no animal would eat. That is why, if a person could only survive in the chamber for two days, he would lose his humanistic manner and mutate into a wild beast, similar to being transformed into a cat, he said.
She was severely tortured in a way that degraded her humanity. Citizens have the right to protection against cruel, inhuman, or humiliating treatment or punishment, as specified in the Constitution, but she was subjected to all of them in violation of her constitutional rights. According to her, you may have a democratic constitution, but it does not ensure you will have a democratic administration. She knew she had been stripped of all her rights and privileges throughout her eight years in solitary confinement, which she deserved at the very least. At any institution, she was not allowed to interact with other inmates in any way. Several detainees expressed interest in speaking with her but were afraid of the repercussions. She was tortured by isolating her from other people and abandoning her to her fate. She was taken to the Central Investigation Bureau’s interrogation chamber every night after midnight and physically abused and tortured until the early hours.
The interrogation was usually conducted by three to four secret service officers, who asked her to strip down to her underwear and stand naked in front of them. They used to complete their interrogation sessions by banging her head to the wall, passing out, and lying down on the cold cement floor. When they beat her with an electric wire or punched her in the nose and eyes with their massive feasts, she usually passed out. She was denied access to adequate medical care for a long period, which culminated in a health problem in her later years.
He had to suffer a succession of horrible experiences in prison after being imprisoned nearly nine times. He was held captive in a dark room and interrogated at night by senior operatives of the Central Investigation Agency, including Director Tadesse Miheret, after his first arrest at the Central Investigation Agency detention camp. When the Bureau’s head, Tadessee Miheret accidental side-shot him with his gun, he was severely injured, and blood spilled for more than half an hour. He wouldn’t even let him see a doctor, allowing only a small cotton pad soaked in alcohol to be applied to the wound on his skull. That experience became the most excruciating moment of his life to recollect until today, not because he watched his blood split on the floor, but because of the bitter taste of tears in his mouth dripping down on his cheeks.
This participant was held in a cramped, dimly lit room when he was arrested. He was allowed to view the light of the day for fifteen minutes every three days. He had to drape a scarf over his face when the soldiers led him out of the chamber because he couldn’t open his eyes to see out into the daylight. He told the judge about how he was mistreated and tortured in prison at one of his court appearances. Instead of commenting on his appeal, the judge spoke briefly to the cops in charge of his case and granted them an additional 28 days to complete their investigation. He realized right then and there that his appeal had been a major miscalculation.
When they got back to prison, one of the cops told him to be prepared for the impending punishment. As they approached the jail compound, they carried him to the opposite side of his last cell, where they waited at a little iron gate. One of the guards pushed him inside into a cage-like chamber after unlocking the fence. He couldn’t even stand up because the room was only one meter by one meter and the ceiling height was only one and a half meters. In that confining space, a small mattress, perhaps for a boy, was set on the floor, and he spotted a small pail next to it for peeing and other similar uses.
They kept him in that cage for a month, allowing him every three days to see the outside world. He used to ooze into the bucket and hide it behind his back with his jacket. On the third day, he put on the jacket or used it to shade his eyes from the light as he left the room. In addition, by imprisoning him in such a chamber, secret service operatives blindfolded him and transported him to an interrogation room in the middle of the night, where he was grilled for more than three hours every day. It was one of their tactics for mentally torturing inmates.
The other participant was interrogated and tortured every day for up to six hours after midnight. He was a prisoner who was imprisoned in a dark chamber for three days and only allowed to see the sun for fifteen minutes. He was a prisoner for several weeks, confined to a one-meter-by-one-meter room in which he couldn’t even stand up. He was a prisoner who had to sleep next to a bucket full of pee and feces since he was confined to a kettle-like room. He was a prisoner who had been tortured both psychologically and physically by Meles’s secret service guys for months. Most people, he said, would go insane if they were forced to go through what he went through in the Central Investigation Agency prison for six months.
According to him, the interrogation, like that of the other detainees, occurred mostly at night, especially when people were sleeping. They interrogated him for up to six hours at a time, forcing him to speak about subjects he did not know of or would never be involved in. During interrogation, the commander would frequently set his weapon on the desk in front of him and tell him not to pressure him into doing anything he didn’t want to do.
This participant was tortured and harmed in any manner they could to make him feel inferior to their position and authority. Security agents, for example, arrived at the prison unexpectedly and instructed the prison officers to bind his hands and legs to remind him that he was still a detainee. They frequently verbally abused him to hurt his feelings and diminish his humanity. He was subjected to a variety of psychological tortures intended to dash his dreams for a better future or persuade him that his sacrifice was in vain.
As per him, in prison, humans were regarded with far less respect than animals. Men were exposed to horrific treatment, including physical and psychological abuse and torture. He and his inmates were tortured at night by police and secret service personnel whenever they uttered a single word in protest of what was happening to them or other prisoners. They were usually confined in a dark room for days at a period, allowing them only thirty minutes in the morning to see the light of day.
The secret service operatives tortured the other participant in a variety of methods, the most heinous of which was the midnight flogging of his under feet with an electric wire. Strenuous physical tasks that caused him to fall on the ground like a leaf of a tree were among the other types of misery he endured there. Interrogators frequently employ the punch with their massive feasts or legs over his body in addition to all of these agonizing ways, in which any interrogation method might easily end in a broken nose or a bulging eye.
She was first detained in a dark solitary confinement cell at the Central Investigation Bureau detention center, where she was only allowed to see light for an hour a day. In the middle of the night, several secret service agents tortured her naked. They came in the middle of the night to take her from her cell to their interrogation room regularly. She was forcefully interrogated every other day, and it was generally after midnight, so she had to sleep largely throughout the day to treat and restore energy from all the violence and cruel acts that were being perpetrated against her.
Electric wires and devices, iron chains, and various types of bumping sticks were among the torture instruments she saw there. Before they started punching and smacking her, they told her to take off all of her clothes but her panty. They began questioning her with words once she stood naked in front of them, then slapping, striking, and slicing her with an object.
Standing barefoot on the cement floor at that hour of the night nearly killed her, in addition to the psychological trauma caused by being naked in front of a gathering of men. They flogged her with an electric wire after severely chaining her hands. They told her she had to confess to a crime she hadn’t done when she asked them to stop. She didn’t tell them anything, though, because she hadn’t done anything wrong that she was aware of. As a result, they kept torturing her, and she ultimately grew accustomed to it. Solitary confinement was the most severe kind of torture utilized on her, as it was on the other individuals in this study.
Afflictions
The word “affliction” is defined by the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2005) as: “pain and suffering or something that causes it” (p.26). As the study focuses on the participants’ lived experiences in such jail institutions, investigating the afflictions that they were forced to go through and make their life in prison more miserable is one research theme.
The study found out that various types of afflictions made these journalists suffer at various prison homes during those trying times, particularly at Central Investigation Agency (Maekelawi), Kaliti, and Zeway prisons.
“The most terrifying experience”
In prison, he has endured a variety of hardships and afflictions. He was beaten and held in a dark chamber for days or weeks without a court order, surviving with a cup of water and a little meal once a day. He was forced to use the bathroom while tiptoeing over other inmates’ knees and chests in a tight room with roughly 200 other detainees, where the feet couldn’t readily touch the ground and prisoners were forced to use the bathroom while tiptoeing over other inmates’ knees and chests. Bedbugs and lice flooded the space every few seconds due to the heated temperature inside. Then they sustained themselves drinking prisoners’ blood, he remembered.
For many, including him, the food they served to the convicts was a cause of discomfort. According to him, during Meles’ reign, the daily allotment for a prisoner meal was 4 birr, which is barely enough to buy breakfast, lunch, or dinner in Ethiopia. Even you would not set aside such a modest amount for animal feeding. As a result, they were fed food that even animals would have refused to eat. Only when the prisoners’ families came to visit them regularly or fortnightly did they get a nice supper. The guards would sometimes deny their families access or allow them to pass the food on, forcing them to bring the food 300 km back to Addis Ababa. Prisoners developed many parasitic problems connected to sanitation and contamination as a result of being compelled to eat the garbage delivered by the prison.
The other participant was denied access to services such as the library, cafeteria, sporting activities, and religious prayers or rituals that other inmates enjoy. In addition, mosquito bites and lace stings made his entire situation unpleasant. In some of the prisons where he was held, a variety of bugs covered his body from head to toe. He was denied a blanket from the prison or even his family, so he slept with his clothes on a cement floor. He had endless restless nights as a result of all of these situations, in addition to the physical suffering secret service personnel inflicted on him after midnight.
The most terrifying experience he had at Zeway prison was being bitten and stung all over his body at all hours of the day and night. When he started removing those creepy-crawly insects from his body with two full hands at a time, he cursed his life. The bugs were plentiful on the walls and ceiling, and when they bit him, he felt like the bane of his existence. He became numb to their venomous bites over time, and he fell asleep dead while they crouched all over him. Red Cross International authorities paid a visit to the prison where he had been thrown in and saw the conditions, and to his relief, they arrived a week later with a range of pest killer sprays and insecticides.
According to another participant, there is no access to drinkable water at the Zeway prison. A prisoner may be given water to drink once in a week, or even once every fifteen days. He had been taught in elementary and secondary science classes that a human could not spend more than three days without water, but what he witnessed at Zeway prison disproved his previous knowledge when he observed others, including himself, go more than a week without water.
The meals supplied to them at Zeway prison tasted like animal feed. When such food was offered to them, they would frequently fail to eat it right away and leave it on the plate for only two minutes. Then it started emitting a horrible odor that made them want to puke and flee the table, much less eat it. They were constantly surprised to learn about the ingredients in their meals. They were used to seeing grass and wood within injera (local bread), and he suspected Zeway Prison was the first to make injera with teff and Segatura (wood waste).
He had learned a lot about how to survive without food for days at Zeway Prison. He had been eating barely a quarter portion of injera per day to stay alive. He was underweight when he was arrested, but he was nearly skeletal when he was released from Zeway after eight years. He asks, is there any type of affliction that a person may endure more than this?
The filthy biting bugs that were discovered all over the place at Zeway prison added to his misery. According to this participant, the mattress was full of bugs, and he felt no pain when they drew his blood, and when they started stinging or biting his flesh, he stopped scratching it.
She was imprisoned alone for more than a year in a gloomy solitary confinement chamber at the Central Inquiry Bureau, where she endured a variety of terrible hardships and painful afflictions for seven years. They put her in solitary confinement, as they had done before, and subjected her to the most terrible punishment imaginable. She contracted a respiratory problem because the sanitation room was close to the toilet room.
The prison cell’s walls were composed of corrugated iron sheets, so it’s easy to imagine someone getting burnt during the day and freezing at night. She remained alone in that small room for six years, with no one to talk to or share her feelings with. She was alone and segregated within the next compound, staring through the barbed wire at the criminals who were playing and conversing with each other. She was only permitted to read a limited number of works, none of which were political or critical of the government at the time.
The Assossa Prison experience Participant 5 had firsthand, been the most gruesome, and was intimately connected to his long-standing reputation as a journalist born and raised in a city. He related that malaria, yellow fever, typhus, typhoid, and other deadly diseases are common in Assossa Prison. When he was ill with two of the diseases listed above, he was lucky enough to avoid death in prison twice by seeking medical care. Many prisoners died as a result of a lack of medication and care at the detention facility after consuming poisoned food and drinking polluted water. Many of the inmates had also been bitten by poisonous bugs and had been threatened by dangerous animals such as snakes, which would occasionally enter the chamber and harm them.
The other participant recounted that he was incarcerated in a cell with roughly 300 other inmates at the time. The cell was filled with detainees like a grain silo, and it was difficult to envision a prison like this in stateless Somalia at the time. Every prisoner began to break out in a cold sweat on their foreheads around sunrise as if they were having a bath. They also felt obliged to breathe quickly, as if the room’s oxygen supply had been restricted. The sweat on the prisoner’s brow had evaporated, generating dews on the ceiling, which subsequently fell as raindrops on the inmates. He had been tormented in that horrific prison cell for more than a year.
Sleeping on one’s back, tummy, or chest was not an option in the cell, which held over 300 inmates. A prisoner could only sleep on either his left or right side! Inmates refer to sleeping on either side of the body as Deboka. When convicts are unable to sleep Deboka style, they are forced to stand or sit in the corner of the room until they are awakened and replaced. He was tormented by being forced to stand or sit in a corner of a prison cell for an entire night in the hopes of finding a vacant area to sleep, only to have a morning light enter the room instead.
This research participant was not allowed to seek medical treatment in a government hospital when he became sick. He was suffering from asthma, and the warden refused to let him go to a health facility. He and other inmates of his type had been allowed to visit a tiny health station staffed by a health officer or a nurse. In such situations, anti-pain drugs, primarily Paracetamol 500 mg, were the conventional treatment. When he gained his freedom, he completely lost his ability to smell.
The stings and bites came thick and fast, and his prison cell was crawling with insects. He recalls the bugs covering his body the day he was imprisoned and his inability to withstand their sting. He cried and screamed at first because of the pain all over his body, but the other convicts helped him wipe some of it away from his back, and he felt a little better. “Being a human has the advantage of being able to quickly adapt to the environment in which they find themselves,” he bitterly said.
Prisoners were only allowed to use the toilet in the morning and evening, and the rest of the time they were compelled to use the tin can in one corner of the room. Their cage began to stink like hell as the day continued and the temperature rose. As a result, several of the convicts, including him, got a lifelong sinus condition.
A life in prison cannot be regarded as such for the other participant. “You’ll get a taste of what it’s like to live in a hell on Earth once you arrive” he described depressingly. He has seen how convicts fight and languish in prison until they loathe their Ethiopian heritage. At first, the bugs’ stings and bites made him weep for several days until he learned accustomed to them. Because everyone was scratching their bodies, the inmates dubbed it “playing guitar.”
Another participant described the filthy circumstances in the prison as “too much” for them to tolerate. The toilet rooms, one of which was connected to their prison cell, had very little water. In the jail section, which held hundreds of inmates, only two toilets were located. As a result of the terrible odor that had pervaded their chambers, many of them were suffering from throat and nose problems.
They were only allowed to use the toilet in the morning and evening; otherwise, they had to pee in a tin can in the corner of the room. They were driven wild by the toilet’s terrible odor coupled with the pungent odor of the tin can. One day, the cops were painting the wall with iron paint, and the strong odor forced them to sit for two nights in a row because they couldn’t breathe properly.
He was once transported to another dreadful prison in Addis, where he went through hell on Earth. The room was comparable to the preceding one in size and was connected to a bathroom. He couldn’t tell the difference between being imprisoned in a bathroom and being imprisoned in that prison cell. After the court allowed him to be bailed out with two thousand birr, he was incarcerated in a suffocating prison cell. By that time, he had deduced that the secret agents had prepared him for a lengthy voyage to suffer and languish in one of their covert jail centers, which he did for a year.
He remembers that he was forced to sleep on a filthy mattress that no one had the patience to clean, let alone sleep on, because security agents refused to allow them to obtain adequate services at the correctional facility. They also sent him to sleep in the room’s corner, near a tin can where the detainees discharge themselves at night. The bugs had covered his entire body within minutes of his incarceration and were stinging and biting him severely. He’s still shocked at how he was able to endure such excruciating pain for months. He thought what had happened to him was similar to having a nightmare or seeing a horrific incident.
This participant was not allowed to speak with other detainees and was forced to eat, sit in the sun, or use the lavatory after everyone else. She was entirely shunned and confined to a small, dark room to suffer alone. After the court ordered that she defend herself against the charges against her, she was transported to Kaliti prison. Because she could communicate with other convicts, Kaliti Prison was a better fit for her. But she had other problems to contend with, one of which was a food problem. It was revolting enough to look at the food supplied to convicts at Kaliti Prison, let alone eat it.
Conclusion
This study demonstrates that listening to someone about the kind of jail they were imprisoned in can reveal a lot about the character of the government. Based on the journalists’ uneasy memories of the overall jailhouse environment in which they spent years of their lives, the study concluded that the pain the participants suffered as a result of practicing journalism was largely connected to Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi era. Although few admit to making mistakes in terms of ethical and professional transgressions while executing their duties, the majority blamed Meles’ administration for everything that had gone wrong in their personal as well as professional life as journalists.
In this regard, the study highlighted two key points in much of the evidence: (i) Private press journalists during Meles Zenawi’s era went through countless forms of torture and affliction while they were jailed at various prison houses, and (ii) the regime was promoting authoritarian democracy, as it did not genuinely show any respect to the constitution which itself ratified. As a result, the study concluded that Meles Zenawi’s regime pursued an authoritarian form of democracy that fell short of meeting international standards and was anti-press and intolerant of free expression.
This empirical study investigated how private press journalists in Ethiopia were harassed, imprisoned, and subjected to torture at various detention facilities during MelesZenawi’s era. These atrocities continue to haunt many journalists who experienced them during the stated period. As a result, the majority of the participants do not believe that Ethiopia’s print media will flourish shortly for a variety of reasons they detailed in their accounts, one of which is the unpleasant memory of the arrest, torture, and harassment of journalists and publishers that occurred during the aforementioned era.
The participants acknowledged that some laws, notably the Anti-Terrorism Law, had been revised since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office, but they remained adamant that the laws needed to be thoroughly revised once more because they thought there were still numerous articles that promoted the bad intentions of an authoritarian democracy type of regime.
The study finally suggests that media organizations and associations need to create a policy for protecting journalists without regard to their qualifications, or political and ethnic background. Journalists must be able to work freely regardless of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or gender. They should be able to report on a wide range of viewpoints and attitudes. If this diversity is reduced just to mean political, ethnic, gender, or other targets, then there are problems with its fundamental premise.
This research also makes a stringent recommendation that the government should formulate a policy requiring its officials to provide information to journalists irrespective of their political, social, or other relationships with the media.
While they deserve their full freedom and independence to do their job, journalists must maintain their independence in practice and should not take sides in political debates, but maintain objectivity and impartiality. Their reports must meet industry standards of balance and fairness and never be weaponized. The study advises that a regulatory agency be established to supervise such works and check and correct them.
Limitations of the study
This study is limited to interviewing 12 journalists from the private press who were detained, tortured, harassed, or had to leave the country out of fear of reprisals. As a result, the study participant’s ability to fully explain the lived experiences of the then Ethiopian private press journalists may be limited, although diverse viewpoints may be able to offset the potential limitation.
Author contributions
The corresponding author did the original drafting, conceptualization, formal analysis, project management, validation, and research required to complete the task. The co-author completed the essential language editing, proofreading, validation, and supervision.
Funding
The authors acknowledge the College of Humanities, Language Studies, Journalism, and Communications of Addis Ababa University for providing financial support to the corresponding author.
Data availability
Data could be available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethical approval
At the time the study was initiated, an Institutional Review Board (IRB) in the researchers’ college was still being constituted and did not start officially functioning in the review of research proposals for ethical adherence. However, the study was conducted in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki as may be applicable to studies in the social sciences and humanities. The ethical considerations addressed in the study included respect for study participants, their right to self-determination as well as informed consent. Further, the school-level relevant institutional body, the Office of Coordinator of Graduate Programs at the School of Journalism and Communication of Addis Ababa University supported the conduct of the study.
Informed Consent
The researchers provided proper anonymization of the study participants, and informed consent, both written and oral, was obtained at the time of the first data collection.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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Abstract
This study investigated the agony, tribulations, and trials that private press journalists in Ethiopia experienced firsthand in several detention facilities in Ethiopia for engaging in journalistic activity. The study used the period of the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s administration, and it employed a qualitative phenomenological research approach to examine the lived experiences of 12 private press journalists. Alfred Schutz’s “Life World” theory and the Italian fascist political theorist Giovanni Gentile’s Authoritarian Democracy theory were used as lenses to provide a “pure” description of the subject under study. Qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured in-depth interviews. The data were examined using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as the participants shared their narratives. The main finding indicates that journalists lacked professional and civic freedoms to carry out their duties since the government interjected into their daily lives, imprisoning them and limiting their capacity to have the ultimate say over their work and lives. We suggest that the government should revise impending laws and regulations that hamper freedom of expression in Ethiopia and create a policy requiring its officials to provide information to journalists without regard to their political, social, or other relationships with the media.
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Details
1 Addis Ababa University, School of Journalism and Communications, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (GRID:grid.7123.7) (ISNI:0000 0001 1250 5688)