ARRESTED, JAILED, and SEXUALLY ASSAULTED IN ETHIOPIA, SHE FLED TO THE U.S. where she was detained and abused all over again. That is the story Zena Asfaw will tell a hearing chaired by California Democrat Zoe Lofgren, called to investigate problems with immigration detainee medical care.
Asfaw will tell Congress that she was arrested by Ethiopian government forces following the May 2005 elections. She was accused of being part of the opposition because there were messages on her cell phone from friends who strongly opposed the government. Held for 12 days, SHE WAS BEATEN AND SEXUALLY ASSAULTED, and even though she was eventually released, she feared for her life when police began rounding up and throwing people in jail after new riots broke out a few months later. It was then that she fled, traveling through 17 countries in 13 months to reach the United States where she applied for asylum.
Immigration officials welcomed her to the U.S. with a trip to jail.
There, while a judge pondered whether she deserved asylum, she got very sick and a nurse gave her seven pills to take. When Zena Asfaw questioned the nurse, the nurse became very angry and instructed the guards to check her mouth to make sure she swallowed each and every one of them. “Immediately my body started shaking…” Within minutes she suffered a SEIZURE, and fell off the bed. Other detainees yelled for the guards who took her to the detention center medical unit where she was given four more pills. Later that day she would VOMIT VIOLENTLY, BLEED FROM THE MOUTH and FAINT before finally being taken to a hospital.
Zena Asfaw was lucky. She survived BOTH a jail in Ethiopia and an ICE DETENTION CENTER IN THE U.S. Five months later, she got her asylum.
AXUM, Ethiopia (AFP) — Ethiopia on Wednesday began work to relocate the famed Axum obelisk at its original site, seven decades after the 1,700-year-old treasure was removed by Italian troops, a UN expert said.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has overseen a multi-million-dollar operation to restore the obelisk in Axum in northern Ethiopia, where it once stood alongside around 100 other stelae.
The obelisk along with the Axum and Lalibela crosses figure among Ethiopia’s top national treasures and symbols.
“Engineers arrived today and completed the verifying work. The first block will be linked with the foundation tomorrow through cables and cranes,” Nada Al Hassan, UNESCO’s project head, told AFP.
The 150-ton stela, which returned in three pieces to Axum, a listed World Heritage Site in 2005, is expected to be fully re-erected and inaugurated by September this year.
“It’s a delicate object and we are trying to avoid any obstacles. The second and third blocks are scheduled to be reinstalled in the middle and end of July but the inauguration will take place on September 10 this year,” Hassan added.
Italian soldiers carted away the 24-meter (78-foot) third-century AD granite funeral stela in 1937 on the orders of then-dictator Benito Mussolini during his attempt to colonise Ethiopia.
Despite a 1947 agreement to return the obelisk, it remained in Italy until 2005, standing outside the Rome headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Axum was the capital of the Axumite kingdom that flourished as a major trading centre from the fifth century BC to the 10th century AD. At its height, the kingdom extended across what are today Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.
Government officials say many Ethiopians attah great significance to the obelisk as it symbolises the country’s long and rich past.
“It is a very important part of the heritage of Ethiopia. It was very hurtful that we couldn’t defend it at the time,” member of parliament Netsanet Asfaw told AFP.
“It is a reminder to us of the war; of the suffering; of the plunder; and of fascist cruelty to our people. Now we are healing as a result of its return,” she added.
British historian Richard Pankhurst joined the chorus of cheers for the obelisk’s return.
“The return of the obelisk is a return of Ethiopia’s historical culture. It shows the entire people that Mussolini was in fact guilty of war crimes and invasion without justification,” he said.
Pankhurst also called for the return of hundreds of manuscripts and crosses looted by British soldiers during an expedition against the Horn of Africa nation’s then-emperor Tewodros in 1855.
His mother, Sylvia Pankhurst, was a prominent British feminist who became a tireless pro-Ethiopian campaigner and virulently opposed Italy’s invasion. She later moved to Ethiopia and was given a state funeral there in 1960.
A Canadian citizen who has been imprisoned in Ethiopia for 18 months without being formally charged is being treated humanely and is in “good health”, says the parliamentary secretary to Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was in Ethiopia earlier this year.
But if there isn’t any action on the case soon, Calgary MP Deepak Obhrai says he will return to Ethiopia this summer to press officials again.
Obhrai flew to Ethiopia this spring to meet with the government to try to lobby for consular access to Bashir Makhtal, a former Torontonian who was arrested in late December 2006 on the Kenya-Somalia border, held in Kenya and then deported to Somalia and on to Ethiopia in late January 2007. Makhtal – who has been held incommunicado by the Ethiopian government since he was rendered there – is originally from the Ogaden, a part of Ethiopia where his grandfather started a rebel separatist movement.
Obhrai was in Kenya in March on Canadian government business when he flew to Ethiopia to meet with the state secretary for foreign affairs to ask for consular access for Makhtal. During his visit, Obhrai said, he met with Dr. Takeda Alemu and expressed the government’s concern over the case.
But for Said Maktal, Bashir’s cousin, these latest moves by Obhrai are not enough. Nor does he believe the Canadian government has been forceful enough in intervening with the Ethiopian government on his cousin’s behalf.
“The government of Canada is not doing enough for this case,” Maktal said today in an interview with the Star. “After all, the person sitting behind bars is my cousin – who is not getting any (consular) access from his own embassy, not getting access for a lawyer and not being treated, to me, as a human being.”
Maktal also believes that his cousin isn’t getting the same kind of treatment as other Canadians who have been imprisoned in foreign countries, pointing to the case of Brenda Martin. “I would love the Canadian government to pressure the Ethiopian government more. I’d like the Prime Minister, Mr. Stephen Harper, to talk to the government of Ethiopia.”
Obhrai said in his meeting in March he urged the Ethiopian government to follow due process and protect Makhtal’s human rights. Before he left the meeting he hand-delivered a letter from Helena Guergis, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The letter, he said, also urged the Ethiopian government to provide consular access to Makhtal and to protect his human rights.
“We had a frank discussion on the issue that Mr. Makhtal was a Canadian citizen and why it is important for us to have consular access,” said Obhrai. “He assured me that Mr. Makhtal has been treated humanely and he would convey the message to his government. He also assured me Bashir was in good health.”
Obhrai also urged the Ethiopian government to proceed with due process – either charge Makhtal or release him.
On April 23, Obhrai telephoned the Ethiopian state secretary for foreign affairs to press the case again, repeating his concern on consular access for Makhtal, the parliamentary secretary said. But there still has been no action and Makhtal has not had any consular access, nor has he been charged or allowed access to a lawyer.
The Calgary MP said he is now waiting for word from the Canadian ambassador in Ethiopia – who is on top of the file – before he proceeds any further. But he does plan to phone the Ethiopian state secretary for foreign affairs again – to plead the Canadian government’s case.
“We have asked the ambassador what the Ethiopians are doing and I plan to go later this summer,” he said. “We are waiting for them to move forward. They’ve assured us they will. I shall be making another trip to Ethiopia pending what the ambassador says and how it is moving.”
>компютриON (Thomson Financial) – Sheba Exploration (UK) Plc. said four percussion holes, ranging in depth between 40 metres and 52 metres, were drilled into gold geochemical targets at Shehagne EEL in northern Ethiopia from May 16-22, 2008.
All holes penetrated disseminated sulphide mineralisation, the group said. It added the drill holes penetrated pale grey felsic volcanic rocks carrying disseminated pyrite, which gives rise to an orange-red (limonitic) alteration zone at surface.
The alteration zone is usually associated with gold-bearing quartz veinlets, the company said. The average of all 27 quartz veinlets sampled in the area was 5.5 grams per tonne of gold.
Gold assays from the drill chippings will be carried out in due course. Further drilling may continue after the close of the rainy season in October, the company added.
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND — Ethiopian Jews have long been trying to assimilate into Israeli society to little avail but now Annapolis’ Kol Ami congregation is here to help.
The Bestgate Road-area synagogue is the first in the United States to partner with the Family Education Initiative to support Ethiopian Jews.
For that help, the congregation received a fundraising visit last week from Rabbi Yafet Alemu, an Ethiopian who has overcome the difficulties of immigrating and now wants to help his countrymen.
The majority of the Ethiopian Jewish population came to Israel in the mid-1980s and early 1990s following persecution in Ethiopia, where Christianity is the most prominent religion. Since then, according to Rabbi Alemu, many have had difficulty adjusting to Israel’s more advanced society.
“There must be a bridge to help them to transfer,” Rabbi Alemu said.
This need led Rabbi Alemu, 47, to found the Equal Opportunity for Ethiopian Jews in Israel in 2004, of which FEI is a part.
FEI has tutoring programs, designed to help the struggling population that in 2004 had a high school dropout rate of 40 percent, which according to Rabbi Alemu happened because Israel’s population is generally better educated than the Ethiopian immigrant population. That inequity carries over to economics, with most Ethiopians significantly poorer than the average Israeli.
The program also has mentoring programs designed to curb the community’s domestic violence problem. Rabbi Alemu estimated that 25 percent of women killed by their spouses in Israel are Ethiopians, although Ethiopians only make up about 2 percent of Israel’s population.
There are other programs aimed at improving the lives of Ethiopians in Israel, but these programs, according to the FEI, focus on the children rather than the entire family. Adults, therefore, are left without the necessary skills to succeed in Israel.
Their inability in many cases to be good role models for their children has led to drug and alcohol abuse among the population as well as high rates of violence and crime, which Rabbi Alemu said was not typical of their community back in Ethiopia.
FEI “helps [family members to understand each other” in order to help repair strained family relations that are common among Ethiopian immigrants, Rabbi Alemu said. “The program is prepared by [Ethiopians using our culture,” Rabbi Alemu said, adding that he thinks that factors into the program’s success.
The program currently serves about 9,000 people, Rabbi Alemu said.
“We have a choice,” he said, “To leave it as it is or take responsibility.”
The Kol Ami congregation began donating to FEI this year.
Since they started donating, about 25 other Jewish congregations in the United States have decided to follow suit, he said.
Rabbi Alemu immigrated to Israel in 1983, spending 28 days crossing Ethiopia into Sudan, where he received political asylum and was transported to Israel by the International Red Cross.
He left Ethiopia because he was facing prison time for trying to go to Israel.
He felt he would certainly be killed in prison, and so he prayed, and decided he had to try to escape Ethiopia.
“I cried to God as a child cries to his father,” Rabbi Alemu said, “God covered me from being exposed [during my escape .”
After coming to Israel, Rabbi Alemu received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Tel Aviv University and then enrolled in rabbinic school, becoming the first Ethiopian to be ordained in Conservative Judaism, also known as Masorti Judaism, in Israel.
He also specialized in community education at the Mandel Educational Leadership School before founding EOEJ.
FEI now has partnered with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which is an organization of synagogues that practice Conservative Judaism in the United States and Canada. FEI is run on a donor matching program, which means it relies on fundraising to continue its programs.
Rabbi Alemu said he is optimistic about the new partnership.
“Together we can do something very strong,” Rabbi Alemu said.
