Dawit Kebede

Dawit Kebede (; born 11 September 1980 in Adwa) is an Ethiopian journalist who spent 21 months as a political prisoner after criticising his country's government in the lead up to the 2005 general election. followed by a stint at Habesha Journal, a bilingual health magazine. During the interview, Diwa said that the Ethiopian press existed in a climate of fear, claiming that, after the 2005 election, it wasn't "easy for journalists in Ethiopia to do their work independently."

Exile and return In November 2011, Dawit was given a tip-off that the Ministry of Justice and the Government Communication Affairs was planning to revoke his pardon and put him back in prison.

In July 2013, Horn Affairs reported that Dawit had fallen out of favour with opposition groups, particularly the right wing, who called him a "government agent." Zehabesha.com accused him of secretly meeting with Ethiopia's foreign minister, Tedros Adhanom, at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, which Dawit refuted by providing plane tickets showing he had been in Arizona at the time of the purported meeting. Seemingly in retaliation, Awramba published more pieces criticising major opposition personalities and leaked a recording of Berhanu Nega discussing a bribe he had received from Eritrea to finance Ginbot 7's "military activities", the online network ESAT and "domestic peaceful struggles and diplomatic activities".

In October 2014, after two years in the U.S., Dawit announced his decision to hand over his asylum papers and return home, saying that, while he had reasonable grounds to flee, the problems were "not insurmountable" in hindsight. He added that the difficulty of doing journalistic work from abroad was the main deciding factor. On 30 November 2020, Dawit was detained at a restaurant in Addis Ababa for publishing "false information" and damaging the government's image. He was ordered to appear in court on 2 December and 15 December. On his first court date, he was accused of "disseminating inaccurate information, inciting violence, and attempting to violate the constitution", and the police were granted permission to hold him for 13 days while the investigation continued. The second date saw him accused of working with opposition media that aligned with the Tigray People's Liberation Front, spreading false information through social media and inciting violence on his Twitter page. The police were allowed to keep him in custody for 10 more days.