Reporters without Borders organization has chosen the Eritrean journalist Seyum Tsehai, who is imprisoned since six years without access to his lawyer or his family to visit him, to be the journalist of 2007.
The organization said, in a statement, that there are concerns about the health condition of the journalist as he is detained in unknown place and no lawyer was permitted to visit him as well as he has not been charged or brought before a court.
The organization pointed out that granting him this award would draw the world's attention to the tragic situation experienced by this small country of the Horn of Africa.
The organization further stated that Tsehai became, after the independence Eritrea, head of the national television and later head of the national radio before his resignation in protest against the "authoritarian" President Isayas Afwerki. The organization added that Tsehai chose to work for the private press.
It is worthy noted that Tsehai, 54 years old, was arrested in September 2001 within the campaign of arrests which included reformist, well known journalists and opponents of the president of State.
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