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On Monday, at least 12 people, including four journalists and an analyst from a think tank, were unable to fly to Tigray, four of the passengers said, after Ethiopian security officials said the region’s elections later this year. week they were illegal.
Ethiopia’s upper house said on Saturday that the Tigray region’s plans to hold September 9 elections for the regional parliament and other offices were unconstitutional, sparking a possible confrontation between the central government and the powerful People’s Liberation Front. of Tigray.
The TPLF, which runs the northern province, has said the vote will take place despite pressure from the central government.
Several of those who were unable to fly to Tigray said the action appeared intended to prevent coverage of the election.
Those excluded from the flight also had their phones and laptops confiscated, one of the passengers said.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Elias Mehari, a 35-year-old businessman, was on his way home to Mekelle, the regional capital of Tigray, to see his wife and son when two plainclothes security officers prevented him from boarding his flight in Addis Ababa on Monday .
“They thought I was a journalist, they took my identification and violently prevented me from boarding the flight,” he told Reuters by phone. “Now they locked us up because they claim that the elections are illegal, but I was just going home to see my family.”
Hager Teklebirhan, a journalist for the Ethiopian Awlo media, was one of the journalists who stopped going to Mekelle.
“We were heading to Tigray to cover the elections, but the security agents stopped us at the gate, took our IDs and we were unable to board,” he told Reuters.
At least three other journalists received a phone call from Ethiopian authorities over the weekend warning them not to travel to Mekelle, they said.
William Davison, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, also stopped flying, he said.
Abiy has overseen sweeping democratic reforms since he took power in Africa’s second most populous nation two years ago.
But the federal government, and the main opposition parties, agreed in March to postpone national and regional elections scheduled for August until the Covid-19 pandemic was under control.
A new date has yet to be set.
Tigray, whose leaders dominated the previous administration and have often bitterly denounced Abiy, announced that it would hold elections anyway.
