ailed journalist: 'I will never hesitate from criticizing'

From Diane McCarthy, CNN

May 24, 2011 -- Updated 1215 GMT (2015 HKT)

Jailed journalist speaks his mind

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Journalist Dawit Kebede is editor of the Awramba Times newspaper in Ethiopia
• He spent 21 months in prison for criticizing his country's government in 2005
• Kebede: "I cannot live without the profession I have now"

Every week CNN International's African Voices highlights Africa's most engaging personalities, exploring the lives and passions of people who rarely open themselves up to the camera.

(CNN) -- Sharing a communal cell with 350 other prisoners, Ethiopian journalist Dawit Kebede spent 21 months in a crammed jail, losing his freedom for speaking his mind.
That was his penalty for writing an editorial criticizing the Ethiopian government after the post-election violence that rocked the country in 2005.
But while many of his colleagues left the country after they gained their freedom, Kebede decided to stay.
He became the editor of one of Ethiopia's only independent newspapers, with his commitment to his trade earning him an International Press Freedom award from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

"It's my belief that getting outside or preferring exile and living under such repressive situations are the same form, because as far as I go in exercising my professional duty abroad, that doesn't replace the ultimate freedom that I need in my entire life," says Kebede.Continued