In January of 2014, members of the Kojo Nnamdi Show traveled to Ethiopia as part of a group of public officials and journalists on an educational trip arranged by CARE, an international development organization.*

As our stated mission is to “connect your neighborhood to the world,” it was an incredible opportunity for Kojo, fellow show producer Michael Martinez and me. Since the D.C. region is home to the largest Ethiopian Diaspora population in the U.S., we discuss the country often. And with elections in Ethiopia on the horizon, it was a great time for us to gain further insight into the atmosphere there.

We first connected with Soleyana Gebremichael -Soli as she quickly asked we call her- a democracy advocate with the blogging group Zone 9. She agreed to meet us with two of her fellow Zone 9 bloggers Abel Wabella and Befekadu Hailu in Addis Ababa. Listening to their story at the Hilton in Addis, the stark reality of the risk they were taking by meeting us began to hit home.

We knew that the government was restrictive of the media -and getting our own credentials approved by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology was a trial in itself- but hearing Soli, Abel and Befekadu state, in our makeshift hotel room studio, that they could face charges under the country’s anti-terrorism laws for talking to us gave us all pause.

After a brief debate about whether we were comfortable using the recording, we decided that we had to. Zone 9 made a very conscious choice to talk with us and, as journalists, it is our responsibility to amplify the voices of those working for a freer press in a country that doesn’t respect that right as our own does.

When we returned to Washington, we edited the audio and aired it.

Four months later, the bloggers were arrested – along with several other journalists. Two members of our group- Soli and Endalk Chala- were charged in absentia as they were both outside of the country at the time of the arrests.  

We continued to follow the story. Soli, who had left Ethiopia just before the charges came down, joined us in our D.C. studio last March. We watched as the accusations against them were levied- as so many against journalists in Ethiopia are- under the claim that terrorist threats needed to be taken seriously. Despite the relative safety of the country we were told time and again that Ethiopia is in a “dangerous neighborhood” and any possible threat- including, evidently, advocating for more transparency from your government- would not be tolerated.

This July, the Ethiopian government dropped the charges against the bloggers. Five members of the group were freed just before President Obama’s visit to Ethiopia this summer, and four others acquitted in October. While Befekadu Hailu was found guilty of “inciting violence” as a result of a confession he made while detained, he was released on bail last month and is unlikely to return to jail.

Freedom of the press in Ethiopia is an important story for our program – and an even more important one for the people in our audience with direct connections to the country. It also remains a stubbornly difficult story to follow. Ethiopia ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

Despite not having many of the freedoms that we in American media can often take for granted, the journalists at Zone 9 are doing vital work to share the reality of their country’s story with their fellow citizens and with the rest of the world. We’ll continue to follow their work from Washington, and we’ll continue to value the risks they take in the name of shining a light on a complicated place where so much is at stake for those inside its borders and beyond.

*Our travel to Ethiopia was sponsored in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.