Ethiopia’s High Court handed down heavy prison sentences to four journalists jailed in connection with their coverage of deadly post-election unrest in 2005, after the journalists waived their defense and pleaded guilty in anticipation of a pardon, according to local sources. All of them worked for now-defunct Amharic-language weeklies.

At least six journalists remain in Ethiopian prisons, making the country the second leading jailer of journalists in Africa after neighboring Eritrea, according to CPJ research.

The Committee to Protect Journalists named Ethiopia the world’s worst backslider on press freedom this year.

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