Eritrea has replaced North Korea in last place in an index measuring the level of press freedom in 169 countries throughout the world that is published today by Reporters Without Borders for the sixth year running. The privately-owned press has been banished by the authoritarian President Issaias Afeworki and the few journalists who dare to criticise the regime are sent off to prison camps. We know that four of them have died in detention and we have every reason to fear that others will suffer the same fate.”

As a result of the releases of opposition leaders and with the acquittal of some of the imprisoned journalists, Ethiopia has risen from the botting rungs of the ranking even if the frequent imprisonment of journalists, the climate of self-censorship and the unclear status of political prisoners, including two Eritrean journalists captured in Somalia, still weigh heavily.

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