This is a petition to ask YouTube, Inc to stop allowing the unjust censorship of independent journalist Dereje Habtewold of DereNews. 

Please add your signature of support to get DereNews out of YouTube Jail

About the cause 

For many human rights activists and independent news media in Ethiopia—where several journalists are jailed simply for doing their job—YouTube has become a vital source of information for the Ethiopian people. The platform carries real-time and documented reports of human rights abuses by the Ethiopian government and its military forces against helpless civilians and non-combatants of all ages, religions, and ethnicities. Without access to YouTube, the distribution of these critical reports—often the only warning the civilian population receives during government military operations—is severely limited.

Ethiopia ranks as the second worst jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa, with numerous journalists unjustly imprisoned, stifling any hope of a free press. It is against this backdrop that we write to you about what appears to be a coordinated attack on Dereje Habtewold, the founder of DereNews and a member of the US-based ESAN-TV, which was suspended on August 12, 2024.

According to a press release from ESAN-TV, Dereje Habtewold—a journalist who was previously imprisoned in Ethiopia, and whose newspaper was subjected to numerous arbitrary closures (a tactic often employed by authoritarian regimes to silence dissenting voices)—is now facing yet another alarming round of unexplained and arbitrary actions from YouTube. His channel has been repeatedly suspended, eliminating news and information access for nearly 500,000 viewers in Ethiopia and millions more outside the country, who are loyal subscribers of DereNews.

This action by YouTube follows an Ethiopian government advocate publicly boasting online that he would get DereNews suspended within days, which indeed happened. According to ESAN-TV, "this situation is not merely a matter of policy violations—there have been none. It reflects a troubling pattern that undermines the principles of free expression and open disclosure, which are foundational to democratic societies."

We urge YouTube to conduct a thorough investigation into the nature and causes of these closures, especially in light of reports suggesting that some East African moderators may have ties to the Ethiopian government.

We applaud your statement to the U.S. Congress in 2022: “YouTube’s mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world.” However, we cannot accept the unequal application of the standards you articulated in that same Congressional testimony to Senator Portman and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The Ethiopian government's crackdown on press freedom is just one aspect of a broader pattern of human rights abuses and oppression. Reports from the United States, the U.N., the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, and leading media outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the Associated Press, and many international outlets document the Ethiopian government’s widespread atrocities. These include drone strikes on civilians, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, and the forceful demolition of entire communities—actions that kill innocent civilians, contribute to the staggering number of internally displaced people, and tear at Ethiopia’s social fabric, which covers some 120 million innocent men, women, and children.

While we commend YouTube for its efforts to maintain quality content and strict protocols, we urge you to investigate instances like what is happening to DereNews founder Dereje Habtewold, where YouTube’s policies are being exploited to silence dissent and suppress the truth.

We fully appreciate YouTube as a tool for free expression and access to information, particularly in Ethiopia, where all media are under government siege. As author Peter Pomerantsev once remarked, “Lack of information is the first step to a genocide.”