Eighty-eight journalists and forty-seven citizen journalists were killed in 2012, according to a report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The press freedom group noted this was the deadliest year since it began keeping track of journalist deaths in 1995.

In the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) report on attacks on the press in Ethiopia in 2010, the advocacy organization for press freedom summarized how the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (ERDF) had “imprisoned journalists, jammed foreign broadcasters and blocked websites as it swept general elections in May.” The summary recounted an instance where police interrogated two editors of the weekly Sendek for seven hours just as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi gave a speech on “freedom of choice.”

It highlighted how the government intimidated Awramba Times staffers for “challenging coverage.”