NEW YORK (AP) — An imprisoned Ethiopian journalist and blogger who could face the death penalty for advocating peaceful protests in his Horn of Africa homeland was honored Tuesday with PEN America’s “Freedom to Write” award.
Eskinder Nega was arrested in 2011 under Ethiopia’s sweeping anti-terrorism laws, which PEN says criminalize any reporting deemed to “encourage” or “provide moral support” to groups and causes the government deems “terrorists.”
Nega is still in jail after a judge in Addis Ababa found him guilty Jan. 23 on terror charges. He could face the death penalty at sentencing.
Ethiopia has arrested close to 200 people, among them journalists and opposition politicians and members, under last year’s anti-terrorism proclamation.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more journalists have fled Ethiopia than any other country in the world over the past decade.
Nega was honored at PEN/America’s annual gala dinner Tuesday at the American Museum of Natural History, with some 500 PEN members and supporters in attendance.
PEN/America granted him the year’s PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.
Forty-six women and men have received the award since 1987; 33 of the 37 honorees who were in prison at the time they were honored were subsequently released.
Accepting the award was his wife, Serkalem Fasil, a free expression advocate in her own right, who served 17 months in prison for treason starting in 2005 and gave birth to their child behind bars. She won the International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award in 2007.
“The Ethiopian writer Eskinder Nega is that bravest and most admirable of writers, one who picked up his pen to write things that he knew would surely put him at grave risk,” said Peter Godwin, president of PEN American Center. “Yet he did so nonetheless. And indeed he fell victim to exactly the measures he was highlighting, Ethiopia’s draconian `anti terrorism’ laws that criminalize critical commentary.”
Nega has been publishing articles critical of the government since 1993, when he opened his first newspaper, Ethiopis, which was soon shut down by authorities.
He was the general manager of Serkalem Publishing House, which published the newspapers Asqual, Satenaw, and Menelik, all of which are now banned in Ethiopia.
Nega has also been a columnist for the monthly magazine Change and the U.S.-based news forum EthioMedia, which are also banned in Ethiopia.
He has been detained at least seven times under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, including in 2005, when he and his wife Serkalem were imprisoned for 17 months on treason charges for their critical reporting on the government’s violent crackdown of protests following disputed elections, and briefly in February 2011 for “attempts to incite Egyptian and Tunisian-like protests in Ethiopia” after he published articles on the Arab uprisings.
Nega has been denied a license to practice journalism since 2005, yet he has continued to publish columns critical of the government’s human rights record and calling for an end to political repression and corruption.
Nega was again arrested Sept. 14, 2011, after he published a column questioning the government’s claim that a number of journalists it had detained were suspected terrorists, and for criticizing the arrest of well-known Ethiopian actor and government critic Debebe Eshetu on terror charges earlier that week.
Shortly after his arrest, Nega was charged with affiliation with the banned political party Ginbot 7, which the Ethiopian government considers a terrorist organization. On Nov. 10, Nega was charged and further accused of plotting with and receiving weapons and explosives from neighboring Eritrea to carry out terrorist attacks in Ethiopia. State television portrayed Nega and other political prisoners as “spies for foreign forces.”
He is being held in Maekelawi Prison in Addis Ababa, where detainees are reportedly often tortured.
Thousands of people in Gondar region, northern Ethiopia, are marching to save the Waldeba Monastery from the Woyanne junta. The people are armed with rifles and {www:rudimentary} weapons such as axes, knives, sticks and every thing they can get their hands on, according to a priest who spoke with the VOA’s Addisu Abebe today. Listen below:
The Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) is currently meeting in Washington DC. Following the meeting, the Church leaders will hold a press conference with the media to make a special call to the people of Ethiopia.
The press conference will be held at St. Gabriel Church in Washington DC on Saturday, May 12, 2012, starting at 5 PM (Washington DC time). It will also be broadcast live.
Tselemt district in northern Gondar, Ethiopia, is under military siege after confrontations between residents and TPLF regime security forces turned violent. Ethiopian Review sources in the area reported that at least 3 Woyanne troops have been killed and unknown number of civilians, including priests, are wounded.
The cause of the confrontation is the Woyanne junta’s plan to build a sugar factory near the historic Waldeba Monastery.
According to the monks and supporters of the monastery, the factory and the dam that is planned to be built nearby would destroy the holly site.
A few hours ago, the Woyanne junta shut down the telephone network in northern Gondar and we are unable to get an update. But we will try to use other means to continue getting the information out.
Meanwhile, in Metemma, a town bordering Sudan, it is reported that over 60 homes have been burned to the ground. A rebel group named Ethiopian Unity and Freedom Force (EUFF) took responsibility for setting the homes on fire. EUFF spokesman told Ethiopian Review that the homes belonged to members of the ruling TPLF junta.
(Yemen Times) — The Ethiopian refugee Seble Yohanes told the Yemen Times that she is only thirty, but her pale face with wide eyes full of concern makes her looks as if she was 50.
[Ethiopian refugee Seble Yohannes]
Looking for a safe place to raise her demands, Yohanes went to the Ministry of Human Rights in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a on Saturday. Yohanes, along with other refugees from Ethiopia, decided to sleep on the pavement next to the Ministry.
During the daytime, this exposed place becomes a sit-in rally to demand protection of their rights from the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Yemeni government.
“The police forces arrested us in front of the Human Rights Ministry,” Yohanes said, with fear evident in her pallid face at the thought of police, who have repeatedly raided illegal refugees in Yemen and arrested as many as they can.
Ethiopian refugees contacted Yohanes and her compatriots in an attempt to relay details of the inhuman conditions inside the police detention center, intensifying her fear of ending up like them.
Yohanes handed her mobile over to a Yemen Times reporter while Hathem, Yohanes’ friend speaking on the phone while being held in a crowded detention center in Sana’a, tried to paint a vivid picture of his brutal conditions and suffering, in the hopes that the whole world might know about those in the detention centers.
More than 220 imprisoned Ethiopians are kept inside a single room. The prisoners are subjected to beating and only given one meal a day, according to Hathem.
“Diseases are spreading due to the unhealthy environment and we are not allowed to receive medical treatment,” added Hathem, who speaks limited Arabic.
The words of Hathem stoked Yohanes’ and her friends’ fear of having to face a similar fate. Unfortunately, their fears did not take long to materialize.
On Saturday afternoon, police forces arrested Yohanes along with seven other Ethiopian refugees, including two women and a 5 year-old girl, Sara.
They were taken from behind the Ministry of Human Rights, according to eyewitnesses.
While in a police patrol car, Yohanes managed to make a brief call to the Yemen Times. She spoke with difficulty, as it was clear she was crying.
“We were supposed to meet with Horia Mashhor, the Yemeni Minister of Human Rights, later today,” she said.
“After several days of continued attempts and great efforts to get to Mashhor, who was passing us for days going in and out of the Ministry, looking very busy, she agreed to meet us and set an appointment to discuss our situation.”
She said that they had short conversations with Mashhor in front of the Ministry of Human Rights, and after talking to them for a few moments she was interrupted with several calls from governmental officials who told her to leave, not taking into consideration her conversation with the refugees.
Two days prior to her arrest, police managed to detain most of the refugees who had created a protest encampment in front of the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees for eleven months, she noted.
According to Yohanes, some refugees were held in a prison in Sana’a, while some others were moved to the camp for African refugees located in the Kharaz coastal area near the strait of Bab Al-Mandab, a key shipping lane through which more than three million barrels of oil pass daily.
Useless asylum ID
There is nothing that can protect Yohanes and the other refugees from police pursuit and relentless raids except for asylum IDs issued by UNHCR.
The first provision of the ID, however, states that the UNHCR’s ability to interfere and protect the refugees is still limited.
The UNHCR office recognizes only the official refugees carrying IDs. But according to the UNHCR, holders of these IDs are not necessarily guaranteed any financial assistance nor the right to resettle in a third country. This draws the ire of African refugees, particularly Ethiopians.
The IDs terms are based on Articles no.17 and 22 of the 1951 United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees, which was ratified by Yemen. The convention only ensures refugees the right to work and public education. The ID has to be renewed every year.
Some minority groups from the Ethiopian political opposition have managed to resettle in the United States and EU countries after staying in Yemen for a while.
Yohanes, like most of the African refugees who continue flowing into Yemen, do not want to settle down in Yemen. They consider it a transition point for their resettlement in rich countries like the Gulf states, the US, or EU countries.
Imam Hussein Edrees, a 60-year-old Ethiopian refugee, was standing among refugees at the protest encampment in front of the Ministry of Human Rights, holding his old refugee documents in his hands.
On November 16, 1992, Edrees obtained his asylum in Yemen from the UNHCR, and had been renewing his ID every year, until 2006, when the UN agency began to refuse to continue renewing his asylum card.
Although he has had five official appointments with UNHCR representatives in Yemen, Edrees said he has not been able to meet any officials of the UN Refugee Agency.
Khadija Nassr Al-Din, another Ethiopian refugee, who has been in Yemen for more than fifteen years, said her husband Kaidani Mariam Asfa died in 2001 after a long struggle with intestinal cancer. However, neither the UNHCR nor the Yemeni government offered her or her husband any assistance.
With her eyes full of tears, Kadija said, ” my husband died while hugging our son.”
While Kadija is Muslim, her husband was Christian. Their son, Ibrahim, was given a common name to both religions. They embodied a unique coexistence between people with different religious backgrounds.
Thousands of African refugees risk their lives when they cross the Red Sea on board small boats run by human traffickers. Smugglers dump them into the sea two kilometers from the Yemeni shore, forcing them to swim the rest of the way.
Yohanes said that in the boats belonging to traffickers, the refugees are mercilessly beaten if they attempt to move or raise heads or hands.
In a separate event, last month the Interior Ministry found an armed gang in Haradh area, in the northern governorate of Hajjah located along the borders with Saudi Arabia. The gang was holding dozens of illegal African refugees prisoner, mostly Ethiopians.
In a statement, the ministry said more than 170 African refugee were kidnapped, including ten women, 50 children, and 19 old men. The refugees were subjected to beating and torture by the armed gang.
“Due to beating that targeted the face and other sensitive areas, some refugees now suffer from sight and hearing problems,” added the statement.
The ministry also revealed that in February, police forces had managed to arrest two members of the armed gang. The two members had been detaining 128 illegal refugees from whom they were trying to extort money.
More than 65,000 Ethiopian immigrants arrived to Yemen in 2011, compared to 34,422 in 2010, according to the UNHCR.
The UN refuge agency further pointed out that 37, 333 Ethiopians arrived in Yemen illegally, revealing that 616 are either dead or still missing.
