Addis Ababa — The Committee to Protect journalists (CPJ) called for the immediate release of Amare Aregawi, Editor-in-Chief of the English- and Amharic-language newspapers Reporter, who has been detained since August 22.

The New York based media watchdog said Policemen from Gonder arrested Amare at his office in the capital, Addis Ababa, at 2 p.m. local time on August 22, citing defense lawyer Abdu Ali as saying. Amare was held overnight in an Addis Ababa police station before being transferred some 415 kilometers north to Gonder, CPJ quoted Abdu as having said.

The arrest was linked to a story on a labor dispute between the employees and the management of Dashen Brewery, according to a report published on the Amharic biweekly Reporter yesterday's issue. The story that led to the arrest was published on July 20 in which employees were quoted alleging unlawful dismissals and reported the management's refusal to comment on the allegations, the report said.

The report said Amare was taken to Gonder by a vehicle owned by the brewery on Saturday August 23 and has been detained there at a police station.

The board chairman of the brewery, an investment of the ruling party's Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray, is Bereket Simon, a top senior advisor to the Prime Minister and a former minister of information.

Amare was not formally charged at a court hearing on Monday, but remains in the custody of police in Gonder, Abdu told CPJ. A judge was not expected to rule on his petition for bail until September 1, after the public prosecutor requested additional time, he was quoted as saying.

"The arrest of Amare Aregawi highlights the Ethiopian government's criminalization of critical coverage of issues of public interest," said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes in a statement sent to The Daily Monitor yesterday. "We call on the Ethiopian authorities to release Aregawi immediately and abandon these crude practices of intimidation, which ultimately cow the press into self-censorship." Amare was the second Reporter journalist held in connection with the story. Teshome Niku, the author of the story, was arrested on July 30 and released on bail on August 1. The English version of Reporter is weekly where as the Amharic version is a biweekly.