By Dhabessa Wakjira

There is a Oromo saying: “Kuwee jechuun mootii kannisaa ti” — Kuwee means a queen who bends but does not break. Few individuals embody this proverb as profoundly as Martha Kuwee Kumsa, an Oromo scholar, survivor, and siinqee feminist whose life story reads not merely as a biography but as an epic of resistance, resilience, and intellectual defiance.

Born around 1955 in Dembidolo, in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia, Martha Kuwee Kumsa carries a name that predestines her for greatness. Her middle name honors an Oromo heroine, and her life’s trajectory would come to mirror the strength of those ancestral women who fought for their people’s dignity. Today, she stands as a full professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, but the path to that ivory tower was paved with the stones of imprisonment, torture, and exile.

The Revolutionary’s Crucible

When a young Martha moved to Addis Ababa with dreams of becoming an engineer, she could not have anticipated how the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution would reroute her destiny. As universities shuttered, she found her voice not in engineering formulas but in the power of the written word. She trained as a journalist and married Leenco Lata, a chemical engineer who would become a founder of the Oromo Liberation Front.

The Red Terror that followed was Ethiopia’s bloodiest chapter, and it consumed Martha’s world. Her husband was detained four times in six months. The first three times, he returned bearing the scars of torture. The fourth time, he vanished into the maw of the Derg regime’s secret prisons.

What follows in Martha’s story is almost unbearable to contemplate. A young mother, pregnant with her third child, she spent a year turning over dead bodies in the streets of Addis Ababa, searching for her husband’s face among the massacred. She named her baby Goli — meaning “terror” in Oromo — a haunting testament to the moment of his birth. For an entire year, she did not know whether her husband was alive or dead. (He had, in fact, escaped Ethiopia, but this knowledge would not reach her for another decade.)

The Prison Years: Ten Years Without Charge

In January 1980, Martha herself was seized by plainclothes security forces. The scene that greeted her at the prison would scar her memory forever: bodies bleeding from mouths, faces disfigured by torture, wounds oozing pus, and a stench so overpowering it seemed to suffocate hope itself.

She was tortured ten times in that first year alone. The foot whipping — a technique designed to inflict maximum pain while leaving victims alive — became her introduction to the Derg’s hospitality. Yet, remarkably, she was never charged with any crime. Her only offense, as Amnesty International and PEN America would later affirm, was her journalism and her advocacy for Oromo women’s rights.

For ten years, Martha Kuwee Kumsa existed in a legal limbo — detained without charge, without trial, without any of the protections that international law supposedly guarantees. But prisons, as it turns out, cannot contain a mind determined to be free. She learned French and Tigrinya from fellow prisoners. She taught biology, geography, and mathematics to other detainees and even to the children of her captors. In one breathtaking act of maternal ingenuity, she faked a dental emergency to secure a brief meeting with her own children.

The Liberation of Voice

When Martha was finally released on September 10, 1989, as part of a mass prisoner amnesty, she emerged into a world that had moved on without her. Her children had grown. Her husband, unknown to her, was alive and working in opposition politics. The resistance asked her to join training camps; the government tried to conscript her. Seven months later, she made the impossible choice: walking with her children for two weeks through forests to reach Kenya and, eventually, Canada.

It was in Kenya, just before boarding a flight to a new life, that the phone rang. After eleven years of silence, her husband’s voice came through the receiver. He had survived. He had helped negotiate the EPRDF’s transition to power. He would meet her in Kenya, and then, two days later, she and the children would fly to Canada alone. The family would not be fully reunited until 1996, and even then, political asylum laws would eventually separate them again when Leenco’s armed opposition past made him ineligible for Canadian citizenship.

The Scholar-Activist

In Canada, Martha rebuilt herself from the ground up. She earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from York University (1996), a master’s from the University of Toronto (1997), and a PhD from the University of Toronto (2004). She began teaching at Wilfrid Laurier University in 2002 and rose to the rank of full professor.

Her scholarship focuses on Oromo culture, cultural identity, and the adaptation of immigrants — subjects she does not study from a distance but lives in her very bones. But Martha has never been content to remain in the ivory tower. She has remained active with PEN Canada and Amnesty International, speaking worldwide about human rights and freedom of speech.

Siinqee Feminism and the Defense of Youth

Martha’s activism is rooted in siinqee feminism — an Oromo philosophy of womanhood and solidarity that predates Western feminist thought. Siinqee is not merely an intellectual framework; it is a lived practice of mutual protection among Oromo women, a covenant of resistance against all forms of oppression.

This philosophical grounding explains her passionate defense of the Qeerroo and Qarree — the young Oromo activists who led peaceful, grassroots movements that helped overthrow the EPRDF. When pan-Ethiopian feminist Sehin Teferra categorically associated the Qeerroo with violence, Martha pushed back fiercely. Such generalizations, she argued, erase the diversity among young activists and criminalize legitimate protest.

In November 2020, following the assassination of singer Hachalu Hundessa and the subsequent riots, Martha co-authored a piece in The Washington Post that accused Ethiopian federal authorities of orchestrating a wave of repression against Oromos. She documented 9,000 arrests, the raiding of Oromo media offices, and internet shutdowns that created a media monopoly for state-aligned Amharic outlets. She called it “Orwellian misinformation” — a deliberate narrative that painted Oromo victims as perpetrators.

The Queen Who Did Not Break

Today, Martha Kuwee Kumsa lives in Waterloo, Ontario, though her heart remains tethered to Oromia. She has received the 1989 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, even before her release from prison. She has been honored by Amnesty International. But perhaps her greatest achievement is simpler and more profound: she survived.

She survived the Red Terror. She survived ten years in prison without charge. She survived torture. She survived exile. She survived the separation from her husband and the challenges of raising children in a foreign land while rebuilding a life from nothing. And through it all, she never stopped writing, never stopped advocating, never stopped believing in the power of Oromo women to defy systems of power and reclaim their culture.

Kuwee jechuun mootii kannisaa ti. Kuwee means a queen who bends but does not break. Martha Kuwee Kumsa has been bent by history — bent by dictatorship, by imprisonment, by exile, by loss. But she has never broken. She stands today as a living testament to the unbreakable spirit of siinqee feminism and the enduring power of the human voice when it refuses to be silenced.

In an era when Oromo rights remain contested, when misinformation spreads faster than truth, when young activists are labeled terrorists for demanding justice, Martha’s voice matters more than ever. She reminds us that journalism is not a career but a calling. That feminism is not a Western import but an ancient Oromo practice. That freedom is not granted but claimed.

And that queens, when they refuse to break, can change the world.

And so we ask again: Who is Martha Kuwee Kumsa?

She is the woman who turned over dead bodies searching for her husband.

She is the woman who named her baby Terror and raised him anyway.

She is the woman who taught mathematics in a torture prison.

She is the woman who walked through a forest to freedom.

She is the woman who built a PhD from the ashes of a decade stolen by the state.

She is the woman who refuses to let Oromo youth be slandered as terrorists.

She is the woman who embodies siinqee feminism in every cell of her being.

She is the queen who bends but does not break.

Kuwee jechuun mootii kannisaa ti.

And her name is Martha.

This feature commentary is based on biographical sources including PEN America, Amnesty International, and Martha Kuwee Kumsa’s own writings.

Authorities silence critical voice as crackdown on press freedom intensifies ahead of June elections

ADDIS ABABA — The Ethiopian Media Authority (EMA) has revoked the online media registration certificate of Addis Standard, one of the country’s most respected independent news outlets, effective February 24, 2026, in a move that press freedom advocates condemn as part of a widening crackdown on independent journalism.

The decision strips Addis Standard of its legal recognition to operate in Ethiopia, citing alleged “repeated violations of media ethics, national laws, and the country’s national interests,” though the Authority’s statement did not specify which reports or actions formed the basis of the decision.

A History of Targeting Independent Media

Addis Standard, established in 2011 as a monthly magazine and published in Afaan Oromo, Amharic, and English, has faced repeated government harassment over the years. The outlet discontinued its print edition in October 2016 in response to censorship, continuing online only, before resuming monthly print editions in 2018.

The latest revocation follows a pattern of escalating pressure on independent media:

• April 2025: Ethiopian police raided Addis Standard’s office and the home of a senior staff member, detaining three managers for several hours and confiscating laptops, phones, and data storage equipment. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed “grave concerns about potential misuse of sensitive data” following the raids.
• June 2021: During the Tigray war, the EMA suspended Addis Standard, accusing it of advancing the agenda of what it described as a “terrorist group”. CPJ condemned the move, noting that Addis Standard “has been an important source of critical reporting and commentary on Ethiopia”.
• November 2020: Police arrested Medihane Ekubamichael, then product editor at Addis Standard, accusing him of attempting to “dismantle the constitution through violence”.

Editor-in-Chief Rejects Allegations

Responding to the EMA’s announcement, Yonas Kedir, Editor-in-Chief of Addis Standard publications, categorically rejected the Authority’s claims, stating the outlet had never received any formal notices of violations.

“The claim that Addis Standard received repeated notices is factually incorrect. At no point has the Ethiopian Media Authority formally notified Addis Standard newsroom of any prior violations or enforcement actions,” he said.

The publisher, JAKENN Publishing PLC, is reviewing legal options to protect its rights and ensure due process is upheld.

Broader Crackdown on Press Freedom

Addis Standard’s license revocation is not an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of repression against independent media in Ethiopia, particularly as the country approaches national elections scheduled for June 2026.

Recent actions against media outlets include:

• Wazema Radio (January 2026): The EMA compelled Wazema Media to surrender its operating license, accusing the outlet of reporting contrary to “national interest” and lacking balance. The station has continued publishing content from abroad.
• Reuters (February 2026): The government declined to renew accreditation for three Addis Ababa-based Reuters journalists and withdrew the outlet’s accreditation to cover the African Union Summit, days after Reuters published an investigative report alleging Ethiopia hosts a training camp for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
• Deutsche Welle (October 2025): The EMA suspended several correspondents working for Deutsche Welle. While most were later reinstated in December, two remain permanently suspended.
• Tesfalem Waldyes (June 2025-present): The founder of Ethiopia Insider remains detained despite a court ordering his release and bail being posted, in what CPJ calls “the Ethiopian government’s disregard for judicial processes and press freedom”.

From Hope to Retrenchment

The crackdown represents a dramatic reversal from the promise of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s early years in power. In May 2019, addressing UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day in Addis Ababa, Abiy declared a decisive break with Ethiopia’s repressive past, stating: “A democratic Ethiopia cannot be materialized if individuals are imprisoned for generating and sharing their ideas responsibly”.

His government opened more than 200 blocked websites, freed imprisoned journalists, allowed exiled media to return, and initiated reforms of laws long criticized for stifling expression.

Nearly seven years later, that horizon has receded. Ethiopia now ranks 145th out of 180 countries in the 2025 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, falling for the first time into the “very serious” category. The Committee to Protect Journalists counts 12 journalists behind bars in Ethiopia, putting it among the worst countries in Africa for jailing journalists.

Legal Architecture of Control

The legal framework governing media has shifted away from the reform spirit of 2019. Amendments to the Media Proclamation in 2025 shifted critical oversight powers from the legislature to the executive, weakening the EMA’s independence in practice.

Meanwhile, the Hate Speech and Disinformation Prevention Proclamation (1185/2020) remain dangerously vague, with undefined terms such as “falsehood,” “hate,” and “national interest” deployed to enable selective enforcement. It is within this legal gray zone that outlets like Addis Standard and Wazema become most vulnerable—not through transparent judicial processes, but through administrative decree.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), a state-appointed constitutional body, has formally recommended further revisions to media laws, citing persistent structural flaws.

Election Concerns

The crackdown comes at a particularly sensitive time, as Ethiopia prepares for national elections in June 2026. Candidate registration and campaign activities are currently underway, raising concerns among media observers about the operating environment for independent journalism.

The National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) now requires media organizations to sign a mandatory oath as a condition for accreditation, attaching legal liability for alleged “misinformation” directly to editorial leadership. Critics argue this transforms accreditation into a loyalty test, institutionalizing self-censorship and recasting election coverage from a public duty into a controlled privilege.

As one Addis Standard editorial noted: “Journalism ethics cannot be governed through compulsory oaths; they must be safeguarded through independence, due process, and constitutional protection”.

International Condemnation

International press freedom organizations have condemned Ethiopia’s escalating repression of independent media. Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s Africa Program Coordinator, called the revocation of Reuters’ credentials “the latest in a troubling pattern of repressive regulatory action against international and independent press in Ethiopia”.

On World Press Freedom Day in 2025, 14 diplomatic missions in Addis Ababa issued a joint statement warning of a shrinking media and civic space, stressing that a free, pluralistic press is indispensable to democracy and social cohesion, particularly ahead of national elections.

The Stakes for Oromo Media and Voices

For Oromo media and those covering Oromo issues, the crackdown carries particular significance. Independent media have been essential platforms for amplifying Oromo voices, documenting human rights abuses, and providing counter-narratives to state-controlled discourse.

Addis Standard’s publication in Afaan Oromo, alongside Amharic and English, made it accessible to Oromo readers seeking news and analysis in their mother tongue. Its silencing represents another closure of space for Oromo expression and information access.

Looking Forward

As Addis Standard reviews its legal options and considers next steps, the broader question remains whether Ethiopia will reverse course on press freedom or continue its trajectory toward increasing repression.

The contradiction is stark: international partners, from Germany and the European Union to multiple diplomatic missions, warn that peace, partnership, and credible elections cannot endure without an open media environment. Yet domestically, legal ambiguity, bureaucratic obstruction, and administrative punishment steadily entrench the opposite trajectory.

For independent media operating in Ethiopia, the message from authorities is increasingly clear: critical journalism will not be tolerated. And for the Ethiopian people, access to information—essential for informed citizenship and meaningful democratic participation—grows ever more constrained.

As one Addis Standard editorial concluded: “Press freedom is not ornamental. It is central to transparency, accountability, and democratic legitimacy. Treating it as a privilege to be withdrawn in the name of ‘national interest’ undermines not only journalists, but the credibility of the political order itself” .

Media is independent. It works to bring out the truth of the people that has been suppressed. The Ethiopian government is silencing the voice of the people, especially when the suppressed truth of oppressed nations is heard—this threatens independent media freedom. It is a major problem for the political and media space when the government intensifies its pressure.