Monday, December 16, 2013

Ethiopia: A lifeline to the world Eskeder Nega | Amnesty International


Eskinder Nega was jailed in 2012 for “terrorism” after criticizing the government and supporting free speech.
Eskinder Nega was jailed in 2012 for “terrorism” after criticizing the government and supporting free speech.
© Amnesty International

At a Glance

Serkalem Fasil, baby son Nafkot and husband Eskinder Nega, who was imprisoned in 2012.
© Private
Eskinder is one of the most virtuous people I know in my country. He really believes in the good in all of us. It’s vivid in his personal life and in his activism. The love he has for his country, his dedication to seeing people living a dignified life – it’s really huge.
Birtukan Mideksa, a former prisoner of conscience in Ethiopia
Birtukan Mideksa spent years in an Ethiopian prison, and was featured in Write for Rights 2009 as a prisoner of conscience. She told Amnesty International what global support meant to her, and how the power of letter writing can be harnessed again this year to help her good friend, Eskinder Nega.
Birtukan Mideksa speaks to us from her desk in Boston, USA, amid the bustle of student life. A Harvard fellow, she is taking an MA in Public Administration at Kennedy School and is a thriving academic.
It’s a far cry from the Ethiopian prison cell she occupied only a few years ago – a place her friend, Eskinder Nega, knows only too well. He is currently serving an 18-year sentence because of his journalism.
In fact, the two were detained together between 2005 and 2007, alongside Eskinder’s wife Serkalem. All three were declared prisoners of conscience. They have also featured in Amnesty’s Write for Rights campaign - Serkalem in 2006, Birtukan in 2009, and this year, Eskinder, because he’s in prison again.
“I was incarcerated twice. The first time, for 18 months, the second, 21 months,” recalls Birtukan. “Look at how many times Eskinder has been imprisoned over the past 10 years – eight times. His wife, Serkalem, was also incarcerated. This is a story of thousands and millions of government opponents in Ethiopia. If you look at the pattern, it’s getting worse.”
The toughest time in prison
In 2005, Birtukan was leader of Ethiopia’s main opposition party, Unity for Democracy and Justice. Her party contested the elections that year, but lost under questionable circumstances. When she and her supporters peacefully protested against the legitimacy of the election results, thousands were arrested. Birtukan, Eskinder, Serkalem and over 100 journalists, opposition leaders and others were put on trial.
“The whole time was very difficult, especially for Serkalem,” says Birtukan, who shared a cell with her at one point. “She was pregnant and she had to live with 70 to 80 prisoners in a very unclean cell. The smell was terrible.
“When she finally had her baby, that was one of the times I really felt low. She went to the hospital and… came back alone. She had to leave the little one with her mum. My daughter was with my mum – she was eight months old. So we consoled each other. Our major difficulties came because of our responsibilities as mothers, and our attachment to our children. That was really the toughest time in prison.”
Silver lining
Birtukan was given a life sentence, but was eventually pardoned and released after nearly 18 months in detention. Her freedom, however, was short-lived. After speaking publicly in Sweden in November 2008 about the process that had led to her release, she was re-arrested in Ethiopia on 28 December 2008. Her pardon was revoked and her life sentence re-imposed.
Amnesty International issued Urgent Actions on her behalf and promoted her case in Write for Rights 2009. For Birtukan, who was kept in solitary confinement for long periods, this collective effort was a lifeline.
“In 2009, only my mum and my daughter were allowed to visit me,” says Birtukan. “I was really cut off from the whole world. I didn’t have any access to the media. We were not allowed to talk about Amnesty International’s initiatives, but my mum mentioned to me that Amnesty people were trying to advocate for me. That was like a silver lining. It gave me hope. It connected me to the real world.”
Birtukan was finally freed in October 2010. “The pressure you guys were exerting on the Ethiopian government was very instrumental in securing my release,” says Birtukan.

She hopes it will be possible to do this again, this time for Eskinder.
Sustained optimism
In 2012, Eskinder was jailed for “terrorism” after giving speeches and writing articles criticizing the government and supporting free speech. To Birtukan, his struggle is almost heroic.
“Eskinder is one of the most virtuous people I know in my country,” she says. “He really believes in the good in all of us. It’s vivid in his personal life and in his activism. The love he has for his country, his dedication to seeing people living a dignified life – it’s really huge.
“He didn’t start his activism with just criticizing the government. He always gave them the benefit of the doubt. He was relentlessly committed to expressing his views, his ideas.”
That commitment triggered a campaign of harassment, including threats, a ban on the newspaper Eskinder ran with Serkalem, and repeated imprisonment. In 2005, when all three were jailed, Eskinder was thrown into solitary confinement for months on end. “That didn’t make him a hateful person,” observes Birtukan. “Still, he sustained his optimism and strong belief in his cause.”
Indispensible support
With its network of supporters worldwide, Amnesty’s potential to secure Eskinder’s freedom is significant, notes Birtukan. “The support we get as political prisoners is indispensible.”
But, she adds, “We shouldn’t forget the people back home – they would love to support us – but the suppression is huge. People can’t express that kind of protest against our imprisonment in an organized way.” This makes Amnesty International's support all the more crucial, she says.
It also lends legitimacy to the struggle. “Some people say fighting for rights and democracy in Africa is futile,” explains Birtukan. “Some people even try to focus on the economic performance of a country. But we mustn’t trade off our human rights for monetary benefit.
“The things you are working on – they validate and reassert those aspirations and those rights we have as human beings as inviolable, no matter what. It has huge significance in terms of the moral support you generate for activists like Eskinder and myself.”

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Ethiopian Journalist Critical of Government Serving 18-Year Sentence

Local journalists critical of the government can fall prey to an “anti-terrorism” law that if “violated,” can mean imprisonment in harsh conditions.
    Free Ethiopian Political Prisoners 5k Walk in Washington, D.C., September 2006.(Photo/Elvert Barnes via Flickr)
    Free Ethiopian Political Prisoners 5k Walk in Washington, D.C., September 2006.(Photo/Elvert Barnes via Flickr)
    Ethiopia is one of the most difficult countries in the world to work as a journalist. It has consistently been ranked among the highest oppressors of press freedoms by international organizations such asReporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists.  According to CPJ, Ethiopia currently has the second most number of jailed journalists (6) on the African continent (with neighboring Eritrea being number one [28]), and it is ranked eighth in the world for imprisoning journalists.
    The problem became grave just before and after the 2005 elections, when nearly 200 people weregunned down by Ethiopian forces during violent protests. Several prominent local journalists were blamed for the unrest, which the government claimed was fomented by much of the press.
    Since then, several international journalists have been arrested and detained for varying lengths of time, including New York Times East Africa Bureau Chief Jeffrey Gettleman, two freelance Swedish journalists – Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson, and many more. Local journalists who have been critical of the government have been caught in the dragnet of an “anti-terrorism” law passed in 2009 that is disguised as a way to control in-country media, and if “violated,” can mean imprisonment in harsh conditions.
    One such journalist, Eskinder Nega, jailed for two years so far on trumped up terrorism charges, is serving an 18-year sentence.  The government claims he was not jailed for being critical of the government, but for running a terrorist organization.  On Wednesday Amnesty International issued an appeal to renew awareness for Nega’s release.
    According to Amnesty’s report, Nega “was charged in 2011 after giving speeches and writing articles criticizing the government and supporting free speech. He is a prisoner of conscience.”
    The report goes on to state that Nega “has long been a thorn in the side of the Ethiopian authorities. He has previously been harassed, arrested and prosecuted a number of times for his writing. Between 2006 and 2007, Eskinder and his wife, Serkalem Fasil, were detained and tried on treason and other charges along with 129 other journalists, opposition politicians and activists. Serkalem gave birth to their son Nafkot while in prison.”
    Since his imprisonment, international media attention has been placed on his plight. He was alsoawarded the prestigious PEN America award in 2012, with his wife receiving the honor in his absence. He also wrote an op-ed in The New York Times from jail entitled, “Letter from Ethiopia’s Gulag,” where he detailed Kaliti Prison’s dirty floors and a trio of toilets for roughly 1,000 inmates. He also urged the U.S. to act on his behalf. His wife lives there in exile.
    The White House won’t act, ostensibly, because Ethiopia is a close ally in the war on terror in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia also plays permanent host to the African Union, the continent’s equivalent of the European Union. Because of the AU, the U.S. has a dual diplomatic mission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, one for the pan-African congress and the other for the Ethiopian government itself, both playing very different and separate roles.
    Billions of dollars of aid are funneled into Ethiopia every year, too, and the nation has the second-highest population and one of the most powerful militaries as well on the continent.
    But the pleas to free Nega have fallen on deaf ears. Meles Zenawi, the long-time Ethiopian prime minister and once rebel leader who ironically freed the nation from the brutal Derg regime of the 1970s and 1980s, died in 2012. It was under his tenure that the anti-terror law was passed and the new leaders don’t seem in any rush to make any changes.
    For now, Nega languishes in Kaliti Prison.
    According to the Amnesty report, in May 2013, Nega issued a note from prison, saying, “I will live to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It may or may not be a long wait. Whichever way events may go, I shall persevere!

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