May 19, 2007

Kuwait Times
May 17, 2007

RIYADH: Saudi authorities yesterday beheaded two Ethiopians convicted of killing a Saudi national in an armed robbery and displayed their bodies in public after the execution, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, said Ali Mohammed Ali and Adel Adam Aman were found guilty of fatally shooting and robbing Khaled bin Karim bin Bakhash, the owner of a private telephone services center.

A court ordered their bodies be displayed in a public place after the execution as a further deterrent “because of the hideousness nature of the crime.” The statement said they were executed in Jiddah but did not say specifically where their bodies were displayed. The process of displaying the body of an executed person is usually carried out by the executioners who fix the chopped head to the body and then either hang it from a pole or from a mosque window or balcony for about two hours during the noon prayer.

The beheaded bodies are only displayed when there is a specific court order in cases considered particularly brutal, such as committing murder during an armed robbery. In February, the bodies of four Sri Lankans were strung up and displayed in a Saudi public square after they were beheaded for armed robbery, drawing criticism from Human Rights Watch, which said the kingdom violated international law because they men did not have lawyers.

Separately, the Interior Ministry said in another statement that a Saudi national, Jalal bin Ahmed al-Marhoun, was executed yesterday in the northern city of Al-Jawf, after being convicted of smuggling hashish into the country. Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery can be executed. Beheadings are carried out with a sword in a public square. Yesterday’s executions brought to 70 the number of people, including two women, beheaded in the kingdom this year. The kingdom beheaded 38 people last year and 83 people in 2005.

Also, Saudi Arabia beheaded a Saudi yesterday as it kept up a relentless pace of executions that has seen 77 convicts put to the sword already this year. The Saudi authorities have now carried out more than twice as many executions this year as in the whole of 2006 with more than six months still to go. Last year, 37 people were executed in the conservative Gulf kingdom, while 83 were put to death in 2005 and 35 the year before, according to AFP tallies based on official statements. The spate of executions has sparked mounting concern in Canada, which has two nationals facing possible death sentences for a murder they insist they did not commit.

Mohamed Kohail, 22, of Palestinian origin, was arrested in January and accused of killing a Syrian youth in a vicious schoolyard brawl in Jeddah, Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Tuesday. His 16-year-old brother Sultan is also being held in relation to the death. In an interview by mobile phone from his prison cell, Kohail told the newspaper he had been pushed, slapped and abused, and forced into signing a false confession. Local police told him to admit to hitting the Syrian schoolboy if he wished to avoid a lengthy prison term, unaware the boy had died, he said, but after signing the document, he was charged with the boy’s murder.

Until last year, Kohail had lived with his family in a Montreal suburb, but returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was born, when his sister became ill, he said. Rodney Moore, a spokesman for Canada’s foreign affairs department, acknowledged that Canadian officials are “aware of the arrest of two Canadian citizens in Saudi Arabia.” Consular officials have met with Saudi officials, Kohail and his family, Moore said, but refused to offer details because of Canadian privacy laws. Executions are usually carried out in public in Saudi Arabia, which applies a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty. – Agencies

The 99 illegal immigrants detained by Tanzanian immigration officers and local police have turned out to be Ethiopian civilians instead of previously alleged Somali militiamen.

The Tanzania ministry for home affairs said in a press statement, available on Wednesday, that after thorough investigation, the ministry had been found that the illegal immigrants are in fact Ethiopians.

“Earlier it was reported by different media outlets that the 99 illegal immigrants who were caught in Mbeya were Somali soldiers who were escaping war in their country,” said the statement.

The 99 Ethiopians were stopped on April 23 in Songwe in Mbeya where they were travelling in a truck.

Tanzanian Home Affairs Minister Joseph Mungai has ordered the detainees to remain in remand until the governments of Tanzania and Ethiopia have decided on how to repatriate them.

Police investigations found out that these Ethiopians had been farmers, livestock animal keepers, students and shop owners who were fleeing their own country due to famine.

Source: Xinhua

CARSON, Calif. (May 15) – Olympic gold medalist Meseret Defar has committed to run in the adidas Track Classic this Sunday, May 20, organizers have announced. Meseret comes to California with an eye on breaking the 2-Mile World Record.

Meseret Defar, from Ethiopia, is one of the top distance runners in the world, as well as one of the fiercest. Ranked #1 in the world at 5000 meters, she already holds the World Records for 5000 meters outdoors (14:24.53) and 3000 meters indoors (8:23.72). The current women’s world best for 2 Miles is 9:11.97, set by Regina Jacobs in 1999.

All spectators who purchase tickets to the event and show their support of Defar by wearing the colors of Ethiopia are invited to a post-event celebration at the Home Depot Center, at the southwest corner of the track. Defar and other world-class Ethiopian stars will attend the celebration.

The adidas Track Classic will begin at noon this Sunday, May 20, at The Home Depot Center, on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills. Tickets, from $40 (finish line) down to $10, are now available by calling Ticketmaster at 213-480-3232 or visiting www.Ticketmaster.com. For group sales, call 1-877-AEG-TICKETS. Visit the event website at www.adidasTrackClassic.com for updates and more information.

A discount is available by entering the code ETHIOPIA when purchasing tickets.

Inquiries from media only to:
Barbara Huebner
Director of Media Relations
617-536-7030 or [email protected]

The elected are still in Jail: Shame on all of us!

Democracy still in jail

It is exactly two years since Ethiopia experienced one of the most open elections in its history. All of us who expected finally our country is going to make it by seeing a lawful, legitimate, citizen anchored, citizen choosing, citizen voting change from one set of parties and persons to another found ourselves in the unhappy situation where the usual mind set of those in power refuse to concede to the citizenry.

Today those that have been elected are still in prison. Far from democracy fully blossoming in the veins, arteries and soul of this ancient nation, we have democracy itself in prison. How else can one describe the difficulties of putting those who have done nothing but run in elections to express the highest form of citizenship, except to say in bewilderments continuing to imprison them is to continue to imprison democracy itself.

The space that was open in Ethiopia in the pre-election phase undoubtedly created opportunities for some 25 million Ethiopians to manifest a will to self-govern. One can understand that the fight, the debate, the commotion and excitement to be unusually electrifying and vibrant. There is no doubt also given the context of a free election any reaction can spill into overreaction. But nothing can justify the regime’s action to convert a vibrant political process where the stakes have been so high to use the subsequent killings effected by the overreaction (if not wilful) actions of its own security services into a legal wrangle against the popularly elected citizens such as Engineer Hailu Shawl, Weizero Birtukan, Dr. Berhanu and all others that are still unjustly in jail. Changing the political process into a criminal legal process is hypocritical and unfair. The regime cannot prove that those in jail now have even an iota of criminal intention. They never had. They never will. They had the noble intention of seeing their nation achieve what it never had in its long history: enter the era of the rule of law where those in power submit to law, respect for democratic freedoms and human rights and democratic political system and governances, and not use trickery and deception to practise dictatorship while talking democracy!

VICTIMS OF DOUBLE-STANDARD

Exactly a year ago in May 2006, there was a self-initiated momentum of world wide protest, and the unity of the opposition despite many attempts to disrupt it was the highest it has perhaps ever been. After May 2006, the opposition groups started disagreeing and the momentum slowed down. There is a need for the opposition to unite and agree in making sure that those in jail are released long before the Ethiopian millennium. It will be a shame on all of us and above all on the Meles regime to enter the next 1000 years with democrats in jail which is tantamount to democracy itself being in prison! There are those who say calling for the prisoners to be released is not the same thing as calling for the release of democracy that has been symbolically jailed with their imprisonment. There is no doubt that calling for the release of the prisoners is the same as calling for democracy to be released. All the opposition forces, if there is anything that they can unite on must be on this issue of the prisoners to be released in order to release the incarcerated democracy in our country. It will be shame on all of us not to see this dialectic and call for the unconditionally and earliest possible release of those citizens freely voted and chosen by Ethiopians who manifested a will to govern themselves through their legitimate representatives.

It is also a shame on those who drive world politics and who say they stand for the values of freedom, human rights, the rule of law and democracy to fete those who continue to jail those whose record speaks a million for standing for the same values. Prof. Mesfin has stood for these values by educating citizens through ERCHO and other press for a very long time. There is absolutely no justification to put a man of his distinction who stood to implement such lofty values in jail. For the world to remain silent and look the other side when such injustice is visited to an elderly man is indeed a failure of will and a triumph of narrow interest. Ever since the US policy thinkers have used the Cold War paradigm to frame that country’s National Security Strategy by differentiating enemies and friends with the language of those who are not with us are against us, it has been possible for opportunist politicians to lure the USA to serve its current strategic concerns. On 20 September, 2001, President Bush addressed the joint session of Congress and the American people outlining the defining doctrine of the post September 9/11 worlds: “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, you are with the terrorists” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html). The problem with this formulation is that whoever claims to fight terrorism whether that regime upholds democracy, human rights and rule of law or not is open to be feted by the Bush Administration. The doctrine, just like in the Cold War days, opens the opportunity for those who run into domestic trouble to entice the US Government to back their misdeeds by getting US power to look the other way. The US Government also opens itself to the legitimate charge that it follows a double standard. One of its standards is to uphold values of freedom and democracy and the other standards are to pursue its interests. For the US Government especially the Bush Administration fusing the two and finding sustainable allies based on principles and values have since become a huge problem. Ethiopia’s search for a democratic history has been influenced by the Bush’s contradictory posture inherent in the tension of the current post September 9/11 doctrines.

Our own election has suffered from the context of double standard from the international community. Our prisoners are still in jail mainly for two reasons: internal opposition division and not being able to unite on a minimum programme, and the double standard from the international community.

A RENEWED CALL!

Always in the middle of crisis lies opportunity. We call for the opposition to unite and redouble its efforts to get the prisoners released without delay.

Ethiopia has before it a millennium coming. It will be a shame to enter the millennium divided: the church is divided. The political parties are divided. Communities are ethically divided. There is alarming talk of a growing religious divide. Ethiopia may not avoid these divisive fissures, but it can never afford it. It is a challenge to all of us in Ethiopia and the region from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean to make sure that we promote rule of law, democracy and human rights and intuitionalise democratic governance as a sure remedy to deal with the myriad conflicts and create a community of security and development not only in Ethiopia but in the entire Horn of Africa region as a whole.

We call on the international community to stop using double standard and demand that it privileges and prioritizes values of democracy, human rights and rule of law over narrow national interests and global projections of narrow paradigms to distinguish enemies from friends. We call them to use every possible influence and the Ethiopian millennium to get the imprisoned democrats released and demand that they express outrage against the criminalisation of those who have been duly elected freely as part of a consistent upholding of the values they say they hold dear.

If both the unity of Ethiopians for democracy, human rights and rule of law and the international community to respect these same values above any narrow national and foreign policy concerns and interests evade us then Einstein is right in his statement above and also in the statement here:” Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe.”

NES challenges us all to show the limitless capacity to human stupidity is not infinite!!! Act and unite to release the prisoners now!!

– Mammo Muchie, On Behalf of the Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES)