Ethiopia

Ethiopian Americans Gotta Vote in 2012!

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Alemayehu G. Mariam

It’s Not Just About an Election

In September, I expressed my support for President Barack Obama’s re-election. I told my readers that I enthusiastically supported candidate Obama in 2008 but was disappointed by his Administration’s policy in Ethiopia and Africa following his election:

Did President Obama deliver on the promises he made for Africa to promote good governance, democracy and human rights? Did he deliver on human rights in Ethiopia? No. Are Ethiopian Americans disappointed over the unfulfilled promises President Obama made in Accra, Ghana in 2009 and his Administration’s support for a dictatorship in Ethiopia? Yes. We remember when President Obama talked about the need to develop robust democratic institutions, uphold the rule of law and the necessity of maintaining open political space and protecting human rights in Africa. We all remember what he said: “Africa does not need strong men but strong institutions.” “Development depends on good governance.” “No nation will create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy.” Was he just saying these words or did he truly believe them?

I also argued that in all fairness there is plenty of blame to go around. I cautioned those of us who are quick to point an accusatory index finger at President Obama for what he has not done in Ethiopia and Africa to beware that three fingers are pointing directly at them.

Truth be told, what the President has done or not done to promote good governance, democracy and human rights in Ethiopia is no different than what we, the vast majority of Ethiopian Americans, have done or not done to promote the same values in Ethiopia. That is the painful truth we must face. The President’s actions or lack of actions mirror our own. Just like the President, we profess our belief in democracy, good governance and human rights in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa. But we have also failed to put our values in action. President Obama was constrained in his actions by factors of U.S. national security and national interest. We were constrained by factors of personal interest and personal security…

But there are other hard questions we should ask ourselves: What did we do to bring pressure on the Obama Administration to promote human rights, good governance and democracy in Africa over the past 4 years? Did we organize to have our voices heard by the Administration? Did we exercise our constitutional rights to hold the Administration accountable?

But I also gave President Obama high marks for many accomplishments over the past four years. Under his watch, over 5 million private sector jobs were created. The U.S. auto industry came roaring back even though some had urged, “Let Detroit go bankrupt!”. President Obama put his presidency on the line by spending all of his political capital in enacting the Affordable Health Care Act which offered health insurance to some 40 million Americans who had none. He established a Consumer Financial and Protection Bureau to oversee crooked financial institutions who had been ripping off consumers for years. He signed a law that secured the rights of women to equal pay for equal work. President Obama ended the war in Iraq. He has promised to end the war in Afghanistan in 2014. He has pursued Al Qaeda relentlessly and ended the criminal career of the most infamous terrorist in a risky military operation, which had it failed, could have doomed his presidency. Last week, Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey described President Obama’s response to “Hurricane Sandy’s” devastation of the east coast of the United States as “outstanding” and his Administration’s handling of the relief operation as “excellent”.

President Obama has proven himself to be a resolute commander in chief and a president open, ready, willing and able to engage in bipartisanship, collaboration and cooperation to get the nation’s business done. But the road he has travelled over the past 4 years has been a hard one. He has faced stiff opposition at every turn. He has been obstructed, blocked, thwarted, vilified and demonized by those who loath him personally than disagree with his policies. The top leader of the Republicans in the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, vowed, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. That’s my single most important political goal, along with every active Republican in the country.” President Obama knows his work is not finished and he has a lot more to do in improving the economy. He needs another term to complete his work. He needs the support and vote of every Ethiopian American.

It is Really About the Right to Vote in America

I write this column not so much to reiterate my support for President Obama but to underscore the enormous importance of the right to vote in America. Perhaps no one knew the importance of the right to vote than the hundreds of our brothers and sisters who were mowed down in cold blood by by troops loyal to the ruling regime in Ethiopia in 2005, and the tens of thousands who were imprisoned for peacefully protesting their stolen votes. While I would urge Ethiopian Americans to vote for President Obama, I believe it is far more important for them to exercise their right to vote for the candidate and issues of their choice.

Those who are not students of American politics and constitutional law may not be aware of the history of struggle and the untold sacrifices and and the high price paid in lost lives to secure, protect and defend this precious of all rights. When the American republic was forged in 1787, only white male property owners had the right to vote. When the first census was taken in 1790, there were 3,893,635 persons in the thirteen colonies and the four other districts and territories which later became states. There were 807,094 free white males, of which 10-16 percent met the property requirement to have the right to vote! The 1,541,263 free white females did not have the right to vote. The 694,280 “persons” (slaves) did not have the right to vote. The 791,850 free white males did not have the right to vote.

The property requirement for the right to vote was gradually dropped; and by 1850 the vast majority of white males could vote without significant obstacles. But some states sought to exclude and suppress the voting rights of disfavored groups. Between 1855-57, Connecticut and Massachusetts adopted a “literacy test” (a test of one’s ability to read and write) to discriminate against Irish-Catholic immigrants. After the American Civil War ended in 1865 and slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Congressional enactment of various civil rights laws, the former slaves formally gained the right to vote with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

But the states were not prepared to allow the former slaves to become their political equals by exercising their ultimate citizenship right. Beginning with Florida in 1889, ten states in southern United States adopted poll taxes (in order to vote, a citizen has to pay a poll tax) to keep African Americans from voting. Large numbers of impoverished African Americans could not afford to pay the poll taxes and were disenfran- chised by this requirement. For decades, many southern states devised various means to keep African Americans from voting. Some used “white primaries” (political parties excluding African Americans from party membership and closing the primaries to everyone except party members). Others complicated the voter registration process by requiring frequent re-registration, long terms of residence in a district before voting, registration at inconvenient times such the planting season, providing inaccurate and misleading information about voting dates, etc. Still others used “gerrymandering” (creating electoral districts by manipulating geographic boundaries to dilute the electoral strength of minority groups and create protected districts) to deny African Americans representatives of their own choosing. Electoral fraud was rampant in the states which sought to restrict African American electoral participation. Ballot box stuffing, throwing out votes for disfavored candidates, deliberately miscounting votes, changing votes from one candidate to another were common. Violence, threats and intimidation of African Americans were also commonly used to keep African Americans from voting despite federal laws against such criminal acts.

Women were not considered worthy of voting rights until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified guaranteeing women’s suffrage. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Native Americans did not acquire full citizenship rights including the right to vote in federal elections until Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924.

Though many of the laws and practices aimed at preventing African Americans from voting were invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1950s and 1960s, it was the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (and its expansion in 1970, 1975, and 1982) that enabled African Americans to finally and effectively exercise their right to vote. This law bans racial discrimination in voting and outlaws barriers to voting such as literacy tests. Most importantly, it requires certain state and local governments to “preclear” proposed changes in voting or election procedures with either the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It also requires that certain state and local jurisdictions provide assistance in languages other than English to voters who are not literate or fluent in English, in addition to granting authority to the U.S. Attorney General to send federal examiners and observers to monitor elections.

Deja Vu 2012: Voter Suppression or Protection of Electoral Integrity?

In the last few years, we have seen a spate of new state laws proposed and enacted to presumably strengthen the integrity of the electoral system. Some of these laws require “photo IDs” and proof of citizenship to register or vote. Other state laws aim to restrict voter registration drives, abolish election day registration, reduce the number of early voting periods and limit absentee voting opportunities. Still other states have sought to make it more difficult for people who move to stay registered and vote and prevent citizens with past criminal convictions from voting. Anonymous private groups have put up billboards and sent out flyers to intimidate, confuse and mislead potential voters, particularly those in the minority communities.

These laws appear to be benign and reasonable on their faces. There is little that is objectionable about requiring some form of official photo identification at the polls. It is customary in many countries to show identification for voters to cast a ballot. But despite lofty claims of protecting the integrity and prevention of fraud, the real reason behind these laws appears to be voter suppression. In a recent court case in Pennsylvania, the State of Pennsylvania admitted in a court stipulation that in passing its voter ID law, the state had no evidence of voter fraud. None! Indiana passed a voter ID law in 2005 even though there was no evidence of a documented or prosecuted case of voter impersonation fraud. Five voter impersonation complaints were filed in Texas in 2008 and 2010 out of some 13 million ballots cast. All of these laws are sponsored and were enacted by Republican state legislators and governors. In five states, Democratic governors vetoed ID laws passed by Republican legislatures. Such laws raise eyebrows in light of the ferocious declaration of the Republican minority leader of the U.S. Senate Mitch McConnell, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. That’s my single most important political goal, along with every active Republican in the country.”

Truth be told, these photo ID laws seem to be reminiscent of the old practices of voter suppression using literacy tests, poll taxes and the like. With new waves of immigration and diversity in the the electoral population, some may find the demographic trends alarming and threatening to their political power and dominance. Millions are expected to be disproportionately affected by these laws including African Americans, Hispanic and other ethnic voters, the young and elderly and mostly democratic voters. It is not clear how these laws will affect the 2012 presidential elections which are said to be too close to call. But it is clear that there is a looming, imminetn and ominous threat to the right to vote which was gained through two centuries of blood, sweat and tears of African Americans, women and others.

EVERY VOTE REALLY COUNTS!

In the 2000 Presidential Election, Al Gore won the popular vote by 50,999,897 to Bush’s 50,456,002 (or by 543,895 [0.5%]). Bush won Florida 2,912,790 to Gore’s 2,912,253 (by 537 votes!) and got that state’s 25 electoral votes winning the Electoral College by 271-266. It is not difficult to imagine that in a close election such as the current presidential election, every single, solitary vote really counts.

In Northern Virginia, Florida, Ohio and Colorado, there are tens of thousands of Ethiopian Americans eligible to vote. Though I would be very pleased and appreciative if they voted for President Obama, I would be equally happy if they exercised their right to vote for whomever they choose. If the idea of one party winning 99.6 percent of the votes in Ethiopia offends any Ethiopian American, s/he should make sure his/her one vote counts in America!

Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at: http://www.ecadforum.com/Amharic/archives/category/al-mariam-amharic and http://ethioforum.org/?cat=24

Previous commentaries by the author are available at: http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/ and www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/

The 66 TPLF Parasitic Companies Under EFFORT

Posted on November 4, 2012, Updated on November 4, 2012 by EthiopianReview.com

Nonviolent Resistance (NVR) is the use of NVR weapons (strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, mass protests, nonviolent sabotage) to disrupt the functioning of the regime and make the country ungovernable. It is to deny the tyrant the compliance, cooperation and submission he requires. The economic hegemony of the TPLF coupled with its gross mismanagement of the nation’s resources and the massive systemic corruption that has infected the body politic of the nation is the ticking time bomb that may very well destroy the fabric of the Ethiopian society… [read more]

TPLF army branching out into banking

Posted on November 3, 2012, Updated on November 3, 2012 by Negash

Defense Ministry set to establish Army Bank

By Yohannes Anberbir | The Reporter

In an unprecedented move, the Ethiopian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is set to enter the country’s financial sector establishing what it calls “Army Bank”.

According to the minister of Defense, Siraj Fegessa, MoD is undertaking preparations for the bank to go operational in the current fiscal year.

The plan was announced on Wednesday when Siraj presented the ministry’s quarterly performance report and program for the current fiscal year to the Foreign Defense and Security Standing Committee of the House of Peoples’ Representatives.

He also indicated that a steering committee has been established to discuss the issue with the Central Bank and devise ways on how to establish the Army Bank.

Having recalled that the ministry have been trying to establish a micro finance enterprise last year, he also explained that the main aim of forming the bank is to help military personnel develop the culture of saving and help them be owners of a house.

He also made clear that the establishment of a micro finance enterprises was not realized as the Central Bank did not give the license because of legal issues. He, however, told the standing committee that the ministry has the legal backing to establishing the bank and that the steering committee is currently working on the matter.

According to the Siraj, MoD has established the “Defense Force Foundation” whose primary task is providing basic goods and services to members of the armed forces. For this current year the foundation will be engaged in the construction of houses for army members, Siraj said.

However, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) neither knows about the Army Bank nor has it received any formal request for licensing.

Public Relations head with the NBE, Alemayehu Kebede, told The Reporter that the NBE has the responsibility of delivering the right information for anyone who wants to establish a bank and the Ministry of Defense might have gained this information.

He, however, indicated that the NBE has not received any application from Ministry of Defense and if the MoD submits a formal request the matter will be dealt with based on the legal work procedure.

Illiterate Ethiopian children hacked Motorola Xoom tablets

Posted on November 3, 2012, Updated on January 10, 2013 by EthiopianReview.com

By David Talbot, MIT Technology Review

With 100 million first-grade-aged children worldwide having no access to schooling, the One Laptop Per Child organization is trying something new in two remote Ethiopian villages—simply dropping off tablet computers with preloaded programs and seeing what happens.

The goal: to see if illiterate kids with no previous exposure to written words can learn how to read all by themselves, by experimenting with the tablet and its preloaded alphabet-training games, e-books, movies, cartoons, paintings, and other programs.

Early observations are encouraging, said Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC’s founder, at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference last week.

The devices involved are Motorola Xoom tablets—used together with a solar charging system, which Ethiopian technicians had taught adults in the village to use. Once a week, a technician visits the villages and swaps out memory cards so that researchers can study how the machines were actually used.

After several months, the kids in both villages were still heavily engaged in using and recharging the machines, and had been observed reciting the “alphabet song,” and even spelling words. One boy, exposed to literacy games with animal pictures, opened up a paint program and wrote the word “Lion.”

The experiment is being done in two isolated rural villages with about 20 first-grade-aged children each, about 50 miles from Addis Ababa. One village is called Wonchi, on the rim of a volcanic crater at 11,000 feet; the other is called Wolonchete, in the Great Rift Valley. Children there had never previously seen printed materials, road signs, or even packaging that had words on them, Negroponte said.

Earlier this year, OLPC workers dropped off closed boxes containing the tablets, taped shut, with no instruction. “I thought the kids would play with the boxes. Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch … powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android,” Negroponte said. “Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera, and they figured out the camera, and had hacked Android.”

Elaborating later on Negroponte’s hacking comment, Ed McNierney, OLPC’s chief technology officer, said that the kids had gotten around OLPC’s effort to freeze desktop settings. “The kids had completely customized the desktop—so every kids’ tablet looked different. We had installed software to prevent them from doing that,” McNierney said. “And the fact they worked around it was clearly the kind of creativity, the kind of inquiry, the kind of discovery that we think is essential to learning.”

“If they can learn to read, then they can read to learn,” Negroponte said (see “Emtech Preview: Another Way to Think About Learning”).

In an interview after his talk, Negroponte said that while the early results are promising, reaching conclusions about whether children could learn to read this way would require more time. “If it gets funded, it would need to continue for another a year and a half to two years to come to a conclusion that the scientific community would accept,” Negroponte said. “We’d have to start with a new village and make a clean start.”

The idea of dropping off tablets outside of the context of schools is a new paradigm for OLPC. Through the late 2000s, the company was focused on delivering a custom miniaturized and ruggedized laptop, the XO, of which about 3 million have been distributed to kids in 40 countries. Deployments went to schools including ones in Peru (see “Una Laptop por Nino”).

Giving computers directly to poor kids without any instruction is even more ambitious than OLPC’s earlier pushes. “What can we do for these 100 million kids around the world who don’t go to school?” McNierney said. “Can we give them tool to read and learn—without having to provide schools and teachers and textbooks and all that?”

Ethiopian authorities abusing Muslim population: Amnesty International

Posted on November 3, 2012, Updated on January 10, 2013 by Negash

Ethiopia: Government continues to target peaceful Muslim protest movement

Amnesty International

2 November 2012

Ethiopia: Government continues to target peaceful Muslim protest movement

The Ethiopian authorities are committing human rights violations in response to the ongoing Muslim protest movement in the country. Large numbers of protestors have been arrested, many of whom remain in detention. There are also numerous reports of police using excessive force against peaceful demonstrators. Key figures within the movement have been charged with terrorism offences. Most of those arrested and charged appear to have been targeted solely because of their participation in a peaceful protest movement.

Tens of thousands of Muslims have participated in regular peaceful protests throughout 2012, opposing alleged government interference in Islamic affairs. Protestors accuse the government of attempting to impose the teachings of the Al Ahbash sect of Islam on the Muslim community and of interference in elections for the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs.

Ethiopia’s Constitution prohibits state involvement in religious affairs. The Constitution also contains an expansive provision on the right to peacefully protest, which is routinely flouted by the authorities.

Allegations of excessive use of force by police

An incident that occurred in Gerba town, in the South Wollo zone of the Amhara region, on Sunday 21 October -during which police officers fired on civilians, killing at least three people and injuring others – raises serious questions about the use of deadly force against protestors. In speaking about the incident to the media, the government confirmed the three deaths but claimed that protestors had attacked a police station armed with machetes and hand guns to try to secure the release of another protestor who had been arrested earlier in the day. The government also stated that a police officer was killed in the alleged attack. However, the protestors report that they had peacefully demanded and secured the release of the arrested person during the morning of 21 October and the protest had subsequently dispersed. Later in the day federal police, called in as reinforcements, arrived at the mosque in Gerba town and opened fire, targeting people coming out of the mosque as well as others in the vicinity. One man told Amnesty International that he had seen a police officer killed in the ensuing violence. Other witnesses said they could not confirm any police deaths. An unknown number of arrests are reported to have taken place during the incident on 21 October and more arrests reportedly occurred in the aftermath of the incident, including the arrests of people who spoke to the media about events.

Amnesty International has previously reported on similar, incidents of police allegedly using excessive force. In July Amnesty International called for an investigation into two incidents – at Awalia and Anwar mosques in Addis Ababa – in relation to which numerous allegations were made about excessive use of force by police, including firing live ammunition and beating protestors in the street and in detention, resulting in many injuries among protestors. However, no investigation has taken place to Amnesty International’s knowledge.

Amnesty International is also calling for an independent investigation into an incident that took place in Asasa town, Arsi district, Oromia region in April in which the police reportedly shot dead at least four people. Reports about the incident from the government and from those involved differ widely. The violence is reported to have occurred when the police attempted to arrest an Imam from the mosque. In statements to the press after the event, the government stated that supporters of the Imam attacked the police station to try to secure his release. However, local sources told the media that the police had opened fire in the town when supporters tried to prevent the man’s arrest. The government claimed the Imam had been preaching extremist ideology. However the protestors claim that the attempted arrest was because the Imam had refused to undergo ‘training’ in Al Ahbash ideology, which the government had made obligatory for Muslim preachers.

Use of Anti-Terrorism legislation against leaders of peaceful protest movement

On 29 October, 28 men and one woman were formally charged with ‘terrorist acts’ and ‘planning…, incitement and attempt of terrorist acts’ under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (2009) in relation to their involvement in the protest movement. Two Muslim organisations were also charged under the same law with ‘rendering support to terrorism.’ Those charged include nine members of the committee selected by the Muslim community to represent their grievances to the government, and one journalist, Yusuf Getachew, who works for the publication Ye’Muslimoch Guday (Muslim Affairs).

These individuals appear to have been arrested and charged solely because they exercised their human rights to freedom of expression and to participate in a peaceful protest movement. Since its introduction in 2009 the excessively broad Anti-Terrorism Proclamation has predominantly been used to prosecute dissenters and critics of the government, including journalists and members of political opposition parties.

At least 24 of those charged on 29 October were arrested in mid-July and have been held on remand under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, which allows for up to four months of investigative detention without charge. The defendants were detained illegally for the last five days before the charges were brought, after the police and prosecutors failed to turn up to a hearing on 24 October at which they were required to present charges and evidence, causing the judge to declare the case closed, according to one of the lawyers for the defendants. However, the judge did not order the release of the group, who were then brought to court on 29 October and charged.

A senior representative of the government told Amnesty International that the arrested individuals instigated violence and were trying to undermine the Constitution under the guise of religion. Similar statements from other senior members of the government have also been reported in the media. Amnesty International is concerned that, in a country where the government has significant influence over the courts, these comments may undermine the right of the accused to presumption of innocence.

The government has repeatedly attempted to paint the protest movement as violent and terrorist-related in statements to the media and in parliament. However, the vast majority of the protests are reported to be peaceful, and peaceful tactics have repeatedly been used by the protestors, including silent demonstrations and holding up white material, paper and ribbons as a sign of peaceful intent. While a few isolated incidents of violence have occurred, these have taken place during episodes where excessive police force is alleged. According to the accounts of the protestors, it was the actions of the police that triggered a violent response. Independent investigations are required to establish the course of events during these incidents.

Continued arrests and detention of peaceful protestors

Since July, when large numbers of arrests took place and incidents occurred at Awalia and Anwar mosques in Addis Ababa, protests have continued to take place in several regions, including in the towns of Dessie, Jimma, Harar, Shashemene, Adama, Bati, Kemise, and Robe. In addition to the original grievances of the movement, the protestors also demonstrated against the continued detention of members of the committee chosen to represent the Muslim community’s grievances to the government. Arrests, arbitrary detention and harassment of protestors are reported to have taken place in a number of locations.� Many of these reports have included allegations of police beating protestors, and the use of tear gas against peaceful demonstrations has been alleged in at least two locations.

Many demonstrations occurred in advance of elections for the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, which took place on 7 October. Although the long delay in holding the elections was one of the central grievances of the movement, the protestors raised several serious concerns in relation to the elections, including: the fact that the elections took place while their chosen representatives remained in detention; the level of control the government had over the poll; and the rejection of the protestors’ long-standing demand that the elections should be held in mosques instead of in kebele (local administration) offices. Demonstrators also allege that the government was coercing voters in advance of the election, threatening the withdrawal of access to state resources and other repercussions for those who did not vote. In statements made to Amnesty International and to the media, members of the protest movement have reported that a significant proportion of the Muslim community boycotted the poll, although the government declared the elections a success.

It is not known how many protestors are now in detention. Hundreds of arrests have been made over recent months. Of the large numbers who were arrested around the two July incidents, as reported by Amnesty International on 25 July, many were detained for a few days and subsequently released. However, an unknown number remain in detention, in Maikelawi, Ziway and other detention centres.

Efforts to prevent reporting on the government’s response to the protests

The government has sought to prevent reporting on the protest movement. Two colleagues of Yusuf Getachew from Ye’Muslimoch Guday fled the country after Yusuf was arrested and their own houses were searched. Neither Ye’Muslimoch Guday nor two other Muslim publications – weeklies Selefiah and Sewtul Islam – have been published since the July events. A correspondent for Voice of America was temporarily detained on 5 October in Addis Ababa while reporting on protests against the Supreme Council elections, and was told to delete any interviews she had recorded with protestors.

***

The response of the Ethiopian government to the protest movement has involved widespread violations of human rights. There has been almost no effort on the part of the authorities to engage with the protestors on their grievances or to put in place mechanisms for dialogue.

Amnesty International believes that the majority, if not all of those arrested, have been detained for exercising their right to peaceful protest, as protected under the Ethiopian Constitution and international law. The organization is calling on the Ethiopian authorities to release immediately and unconditionally any individuals who have been detained for their participation in protest actions. All detainees who remain in detention without charge must be brought swiftly before a judicial authority. Where credible evidence of a criminal offence exists people must be charged promptly, or should be immediately and unconditionally released. All detainees must have their rights in detention upheld, be provided with full access to legal representatives, medical care if they require it and to family members.

The reports of police use of excessive force against protestors in Gerba on 21 October, in Addis Ababa in July and in Asasa in April, must be properly investigated through processes that meet international standards in relation to impartiality and credibility. If enough admissible evidence of crimes is found, suspected perpetrators should be prosecuted in effective trial proceedings that meet international standards.

� These incidents have been reported in local and Diaspora media, on social media sites, and in information submitted directly to Amnesty International.

Ethiopian journalist honored in Beverly Hills

Posted on November 3, 2012, Updated on January 10, 2013 by EthiopianReview.com

(LOS ANGELES TIMES) — Reeyot Alemu missed an important dinner engagement in Beverly Hills. But she had a good excuse.

The 31-year-old journalist is jailed in the notoriously brutal, rodent-infested Kaliti prison in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. She’s two years into a five-year sentence for daring to write about poverty, opposition politics and gender equality.

Reeyot Alemu The dinner she missed Monday was the annual awards ceremony, at the Beverly Hills Hotel, for the International Women’s Media Foundation, which celebrates courageous women journalists.

This year’s honorees included Alemu, whose detention will be reviewed next week by Ethiopia’s highest court, organizers said. There’s only modest reason to be hopeful, although the attention of the award could put pressure on the regime.

Even from prison, Alemu declined to be silent.

“Shooting the people who march through the streets demanding freedom and democracy; jailing the opposition party leaders and journalists… preventing freedom of speech, association and the press; corruption and domination of one tribe are some of the bad doings of our government,” she wrote in accepting one of three courage awards.

“I know that I would pay the price for my courage and I was ready to accept that price,” she wrote.

Another honoree, Khadija Ismayilova of Azerbaijan, was jolted into serious journalism by the death of investigative reporter Elmar Huseynov.

“He was shot — five bullets in the mouth,” Ismayilova said. “Shot dead in front of his door.”

Another colleague survived having his legs run over by a car and then being left for dead, simply for asking how a charity controlled by the president’s wife was funded. She decided that a pervasive silence of self-censorship about corruption had to be broken.
Ismayilova, 36, works for Radio Free Europe, which, as a foreign-based operation, may offer some protection from outright brutality. It didn’t stop powerful forces from installing hidden video equipment in her bedroom.

Blackmailers threatened to post intimate footage of her and her boyfriend unless she backed off.

“I was surprised with my reaction,” she said. “I discovered that anger is bigger than fear.”

She continued her work, and the video was posted online — instantly making her a target for harm in the socially conservative Muslim country.

She kept working, and soon aired a story about how the president’s family benefited financially from an expensive vanity project — building the world’s tallest flagpole. Within six months, another regional autocrat built a pole two meters higher.

“I’m not chasing them,” she said of President Ilham Aliyev and his family, who’ve become the focus of her repeated reports on corruption. “Just whatever you did, their names pop out.”

She added: “I had like bodyguards for a couple of months, but I don’t need it. It doesn’t prevent anything. They are much more powerful than I am and they can do whatever they want. They can kill me if they want.

“So it doesn’t make sense to think about it. I do what I want to do…I will do my work.”

The third honoree, Asmaa al-Ghoul, a journalist/blogger from Gaza, gained widespread attention in 2007 when she published a critical letter to her uncle, a military leader of Hamas, the faction which controls Gaza. It was titled “Dear Uncle, Is This the Homeland We Want?”

The letter criticized him for forcing Islamic views on the population and using the family home to interrogate and beat members of the rival political group Fatah.

She’s been arrested and beaten twice by Hamas — once when she was writing about the Arab spring, and again about her desire for an independent Palestine under a united government.

In an interview, al-Ghoul said that Gaza suffers from three overlapping occupations: by Israeli forces who send helicopters overhead and drop bombs, and also by the oppression of the two main, rival Palestinian factions.

At Monday’s dinner, a lifetime achievement award went to Zubeida Mustafa of Pakistan, who is 70 and nearly blind, but continues to write. She was saluted as a woman who opened the doors of the newsroom to other women in her country.