French journalist Antoine Galindo, imprisoned for a week in Ethiopia, was released on Friday and on his way to France. He was arrested on February 22 in a hotel in central Addis Ababa, along with an official of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a legally registered opposition party.
Ethiopia ranked 130th in the world in terms of press freedom, compared to 16 places down to 2022. After decades of repression, press freedom had made spectacular progress when current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018.