{"id":67193,"date":"2020-03-26T11:57:19","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T03:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=67193"},"modified":"2020-03-26T11:58:22","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T03:58:22","slug":"covid-19-ethiopia-freeing-4000-inmates-in-coronavirus-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=67193","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Ethiopia freeing 4,000 inmates in Coronavirus battle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/africa\/Ethiopia-freeing-4-000-inmates-in-Coronavirus-battle-904066?gallery=1\"><img src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ghanaweb.com\/imagelib\/pics\/667\/66740200.295.jpg\" alt=\"File photo\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> ADDIS ABABA, Marc h 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; More than 4,000 prisoners will be released in Ethiopia as the government continues to take measures to control the spread of&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/people\/person.php?ID=3337\">Coronavirus<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The country\u2019s attorney general said that prisoners convicted of minor offences and women with babies were among those who would be freed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Foreigners charged with involvement in with smuggling and drug trafficking would also be released and deported to their countries of origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among those to be released is journalist Fekadu Mahtemework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The magazine editor returned to Ethiopia after Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy came to power in 2018 at a time when thousands of political prisoners were freed, a state of emergency ended and numerous political parties unbanned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the charges of tax evasion he faced in absentia were not dropped and he was sentenced to seven years in jail last October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other measures to curb&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/people\/person.php?ID=3337\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Coronavirus<\/a>&nbsp;that have been announced by the government include ordering most its employees to work from home from Wednesday and closing all land borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All passengers travelling to Ethiopia are to be quarantined for 14 days in eight hotels selected by authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ethiopian citizens who cannot afford to pay will have their expenses covered by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 400 travellers have started their mandatory quarantine, according to a statement by the Ethiopian Public Health Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ethiopia has 12 confirmed cases of Covid-19. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ADDIS ABABA, Marc h 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; More than 4,000 prisoners will be released in Ethiopia as the government continues to take measures to control the spread of&nbsp;Coronavirus. The country\u2019s attorney general said that prisoners convicted of minor offences and women with babies were among those who would be freed. Foreigners charged with involvement in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":67195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67193"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}