SANA’A, Yemen (Saba) – Yemen is about to deport 2,000 Ethiopians who have been charged with illegally entering the country.
A well-informed Saba News Agency source has pointed out that the deportation process comes under the agreement signed between Yemen and Ethiopian regimes and these Ethiopians would be transported by air to their country.
According to the UN statistics, Ethiopians formed the majority of those Africans who moved to Yemen in 2009.
EDITOR’S NOTE: These poor Ethiopians, mostly women and children, had risked death for freedom and hope of better life in fleeing from Ethiopia, a country that is made a hell on earth for them by the U.S.-backed Woyanne tribal junta. It’s sad that Yemen is throwing them back in to the hands of Woyanne parasites.
The following is a short list of the Ethiopian Review “2009 Person of the Year.” The choice will be made from among these five individuals on December 31.
Listed in alphabetical order:
Ali Abdu, Ministry of Information, Eritrea, for giving voice to the voiceless people of Ethiopia
Andargachew Tsige, Secretary General, Ginbot 7, for having the courage to leave his comfortable home in Europe and join Ethiopian freedom fighters in the desert, while his 80-year-old father is held hostage in Ethiopia by the tribal junta
Birtukan Mideksa, Chairperson, UDJ, for having the courage to stand on principle, and leading by example
Isaias Afwerki, President, Eritrea, for standing with the people of Ethiopia while the international community continues to ignore their plight and the West collaborates with the genocidal regime
Sileshi Tilahun, U.K. Representatives, EPPF, for helping remove some chronic obstacles in the armed resistance group and contributing to its emergence as a viable political organization; also for playing a major role in the ongoing constructive dialogue between Ethiopians and Eritreans
The person who will be chosen as “Person of the Year” is believed to have contributed the most to the betterment of Ethiopia during the past 12 months.
From China to Iran to Cuba, 136 journalists were jailed worldwide this year — a dozen more than last year. China comes in at the top for the 11th year running, with 24 people jailed this year, but was almost pipped by Iran’s 23 imprisoned journalists. In Africa, Eritrea’s relatively small size hasn’t kept it from imprisoning more journalists than the rest of the continent combined, a census by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reveals. Even the U.S. makes the list, holding a freelance photographer without charge in Iraq.
CPJ’s work has led to the release of 45 journalists this year. But their work must continue to be supported: since the December 1st report, a Liberian journalist and a printer were jailed for “maneuvering against the state,” a frighteningly broad term to which any oppositional activity can be applied. Freelancers increasingly find themselves imprisoned, a trend likely to grow as more journalists work independently on the internet. Already, web-based reporters constitute half of those jailed — they find themselves more exposed to abuses by a repressive government because they lack the financial or legal support contracted journalists enjoy, a Nazret article explains.
Many journalists have been jailed this year and subsequently released (like the Daily Show / Newsweek journalist jailed in Iran). And, of course, this number doesn’t reflect thhe threats, intimidation, violence, and laws being passed around the world continuing to make journalists’ jobs harder. Also this year, a record number of journalists have been killed. So it’s not just prison that they have to fear.
ADDIS ABABA (BBC) — An Ethiopian court has sentenced five people to death and 33 others to life in prison for planning to assassinate government officials.
Prosecutors had said the convicted were part of the Ginbot 7 (15 May) group led by Berhanu Nega, a US-based dissident.
He was among those sentenced to death, as was opposition leader Melaku Tefera.
Mr Melaku was present in the Addis Ababa courtroom with 27 other accused. Some of the defendants have said they were tortured into confessing.
Convicting the men in November, Judge Adem Ibrahim said the court had not been convinced of the torture allegations.
The authorities have said they found weapons, including land mines, at the men’s homes when they were arrested in April.
Army officers sentenced
“The… five have committed grave offences and four of them have not learnt from their previous sentences,” said Judge Adem passing down the sentences.
“Therefore, we have been been obliged to give the most severe sentences.”
Relatives of the men broke down in the courtroom as the sentences were read out, says the BBC’s Uduak Amimo in Addis Ababa.
The death sentences were reserved for what the court called the political leaders of the plot, while those sentenced to life imprisonment were active or former military officers, AFP news agency said.
Lawyers for the defence said they would appeal.
Andergachew Tsege, secretary general of Ginbot 7 and one of those sentenced to death in absentia, told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme the ruling was not unexpected.
“It is not surprising to us and probably to the people of Ethiopia,” he said.
“We know the price of freedom – the preservation of rights always forces us to pay sacrifice and if that sacrifice means to be sentenced to death, so be it.”
‘Ethnic apartheid’
The authorities have long accused Mr Berhanu of spearheading opposition plots.
He was arrested after being elected mayor of Addis Ababa in 2005 and jailed for treason.
He was pardoned in 2007 and left for the United States, where he began teaching economics at a university.
Ginbot 7 was named after the date of the 2005 elections, which Meles Zenawi’s party won, but which the opposition said was rigged.
Mr Berhanu denies engaging in armed struggle against the government, but Mr Andergachew said attempts to engage in peaceful politics had failed to deliver.
“The political space in Ethiopia for peaceful struggle has been killed by Meles, so we have no choice,” Mr Andergachew said.
“As long as they [the government] refuse to listen, we will use any means possible to force them to listen or to force them out of office.”
Rights groups have expressed concern that the government is trying to silence dissent before Ethiopia holds its next national election in June 2010.
Mr Andergachew said Ginbot 7 was angered that political and economic life in Ethiopia was dominated by Mr Meles’s Tigrean ethnic group.
“They are building what we call an ethnic apartheid in Ethiopia,” he said.
(Prostitute on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
The streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia bustle with activity during the day. Shoppers crowd markets, taxi cabs dash across busy streets and Arabian-style music booms from office towers. For the most part, Addis seems to be an ordinary city. But as the sun sets, remaining illusions of normalcy disappear. Young girls, some between the ages of 12 and 15, line city streets in hopes of finding a customer or two for the night.
What makes Addis different than cities in the U.S. with prostitution problems? The answer lies in the statistics. More than 150,000 women walk the streets each night. Many charge $1 per trick, making them accessible to both Ethiopians and those on business from the West. In many ways, prostitution here is a result of poverty. Unemployment is over 50 percent. Ask a woman to leave the streets and she might go months, years or even decades without work.
Through a partnership with an organization called Women at Risk, Mocha Club supports those wanting to leave the life of being a prostitute or “sex worker.” The idea is simple: befriend women and encourage them to live a better life. The actual process is much more complicated. Through the dedication of local staff members and volunteers, Women At Risk’s goal is to get these women off the streets, counsel them, and equip them with job training so they are empowered to support themselves and their children in a new way, encouraging them to leave behind the life of prostitution forever. We’ll spend the next week with the organization and the people it helps. Stay tuned.
(The Mocha Club Experience: Starting November 1, 2009, Seattle Pacific University recent graduates Daniel “Skiff” Skiffington and Charlie “Char” Beck visit all of Mocha Club’s current projects in 7 countries and take Mocha Club supporters and friends on a three-month virtual adventure to experience real life in Africa.)
The first time I interviewed Birtukan Mideksa I was struck by how careful she was not to say the wrong thing. It was 2007 and we were standing in the garden of a community centre in the part of Addis Ababa where she was raised. She had just been released from prison and the locals — many of whom struggle to feed themselves — had each given about a dollar to throw her the party-cum-political rally we had just attended and to buy her an old Toyota Corolla car to help her back on her feet again.
Such was her care when talking to me that, after less than five minutes, I discreetly switched off my recorder knowing the interview would never make a story, and continued the conversation only out of politeness and professional interest in Ethiopian politics.
It seems her caution was well-placed. The 36-year-old opposition leader and mother of one is back behind bars, accused by the government of speaking out of turn. It has been almost exactly one year since a group of policemen snatched her as she walked to her car with political ally Mesfin Woldemariam. Mesfin — a large, grey-haired man in his 70s — was bitten by a police officer in a scuffle when he tried to intervene.
Now her supporters in the Horn of Africa country are calling her “Ethiopia’s Aung San Suu Kyi” in what analysts see as a move aimed at attracting international attention to her detention. Government officials often smirk when what they see as an overblown comparison is made.
Party colleagues say she was jailed because the government feared her heading an opposition coalition in national elections set for May and rights group Amnesty International calls her a “prisoner of conscience”.
To her champions, Birtukan is the great hope for reconciliation in Ethiopia’s often bitter political landscape. To her detractors, she has been made a romantic figure by her jailing and doesn’t have the intellectual muscle or strategic nous to lead the huge country.
Some Ethiopians see sinister shading in the lack of international attention, claiming western powers are happy to see Prime Minister Meles Zenawi — in power for almost 20 years — stay on as long as he liberalises the country’s potentially huge economy and remains a loyal U.S. ally in a volatile neighbourhood that includes shambolic Somalia.
Others say, with some resignation, that yet another jailed politician in Africa just doesn’t make news anymore.
Opposition politicians have even started arguing amongst themselves over her jailing. A split in Birtukan’s Unity for Democracy and Justice party is being blamed by some on accusations that certain UDJ officials had policy disagreements with their leader and so are now not working hard enough for her release.
Birtukan was jailed for the first time after Ethiopia’s last elections in 2005. A coalition of parties, of which she was a leader, claimed a fix when the government declared victory. Police and soldiers then killed about 200 opposition protesters in running street battles when Meles said they were marching on state buildings to overthrow him.
She was released in 2007, along with other opposition leaders, after the government said they had accepted responsibility for orchestrating the violence and asked for a pardon. But Birtukan, a former judge, then made a speech in which she said she never asked for any such pardon.
Her defiant words riled many and ruling party members said she was trying to destablise Ethiopian politics, risking a rerun of 2005’s trouble. Meles himself — who had to fight hardliners in his party to push through the 2007 pardon deal — seemed angry and backroom negotiations aimed at forcing her to withdraw her remarks began. She refused.
Now, a year into her detention, Meles seems reluctant even to speak her name, preferring to call her “the lady” or “that woman”.
When he finally did say the word Birtukan last week at a news conference, he couldn’t have been clearer about her future.
“There will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan,” he said. “Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.”
The words will have chilled her family, friends and political allies.
So what next for Birtukan? Does Meles mean what he says? Or will she be pardoned again after the elections? Is she a future Prime Minister for Ethiopia? Or has she simply become a romanticised figure? Why isn’t the international community pushing harder for her release?
From China to Iran to Cuba, 136 journalists were jailed worldwide this year — a dozen more than last year. China comes in at the top for the 11th year running, with 24 people jailed this year, but was almost pipped by Iran’s 23 imprisoned journalists. In Africa, Eritrea’s relatively small size hasn’t kept it from imprisoning more journalists than the rest of the continent combined, 
The first time I interviewed Birtukan Mideksa I was struck by how careful she was not to say the wrong thing. It was 2007 and we were standing in the garden of a community centre in the part of Addis Ababa where she was raised. She had just been released from prison and the locals — many of whom struggle to feed themselves — had each given about a dollar to throw her the party-cum-political rally we had just attended and to buy her an old Toyota Corolla car to help her back on her feet again.