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Tigrayan journalist Dawit Kebede arrested and Woldegiorgis Teklay intimidated

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It is not enough to keep Tigray under total communication blackout in order for its story not to be heard. It is not enough to block Tigrayans from fleeing to Sudan lest they tell the Tigrayan story. Apparently, every Tigrayan, wherever they maybe, must be silenced. Even those Tigrayans who are abroad are targeted by paid trolls who report their accounts to be blocked. There is no stone unturned to silence Tigrayans.

Two Addis-Abeba-based Tigrayan journalists who were writing about the war on Tigray have been arrested within the past week or so. These are Dawit Kebede of @AwrambaTimes and Woldegiorgis Teklay of Awlo media.

Dawit Kebeda was arrested after he twitted the following in what seems a response to Abiy Ahmed’s “no children, no women” claim about the Tigrayan refugees who escaped to Sudan.

According to this official document of #UNHCR, 45% of the refugees in #Sudan are children (0 – 17 years). But PM @AbiyAhmedAli told parliment that “No women, no children among refugees in Sudan”. Who is trustworthy

Dawit had been critical of the war on his Twitter posts, but the message above seemed to have broken the camel back. Some of Dawit’s earlier tweets.

Dawit was arrested on 30 Nov, 20202 on the day he posted the reponse to Abiy Ahmed. Some witnesses of the arrest reported that the security people were harassing Dawit.

Weldegiorgis Teklay (who used hagereseb hara tigrai on facebook) was posting some less critical posts about the war on Tigray. On 9 December 2020, he posted the following and his account was not available after some minutes.

In Abiy’s Ethiopia, to report detention, arrest or intimidation of Tigrayans is no more news than a dog bites a man is.

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