By Lula Ahrens | ROI
A resident of the Dutch town of Haarlem was sentenced to death by an Ethiopian court on Tuesday. He was found guilty of disrespect for the Ethiopian constitution and, along with four other people, for attempting a coup. But Mesfin Aman is not worried about his safety. “I have an official refugee status, and the Dutch government knows what’s going on in my home country.”
Four of the five people charged have been convicted in absentia after fleeing abroad. Melaku Teffera, however, is being held in Ethiopia. “I am very sorry to say that he will have to face his sentence,” Mesfin Aman told Radio Netherlands. “I’ve talked to the other four convicts. They are safe, like me, because they have the same refugee status. One of them is in the UK, the other three are in the US.”
Mesfin has lived in the Netherlands as a fugitive since 2006. He is currently finishing his MBA at the Amsterdam Business School. “After the 2005 election protests, in which I took part, the UN High Commissioner invited me to stay in the Netherlands as a political refugee. I have an invited refugee status and a residence permit. I do not have the Dutch nationality yet. For that I’ll have to wait for another two years.”
The 30-year-old student heard the news on Tuesday when he was called by Andargachew Tsige, one of his fellow defendants. He then checked the news on-line and realized it was true. Aman is confident that he won’t have to face his sentence: “The Dutch government follows the standard international rules and would never extradite me. They know what’s going on in Ethiopia.”
Aman has been politically active since he was a teenager. He chose to study political science and fight for democracy, despite the obvious dangers. “The government considers all opinions different from their own as disrespect for the constitution and a threat to their existence. They use phrases like ‘attempted coup’ to justify their killing of opposition members.”
In 2001, he spent several months in solitary confinement after he took part in a protest against the regime of the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi. In the aftermath of the elections in 2005, he again spent several weeks in solitary confinement, after which he was released on bail. He escaped to Kenya, and then to the Netherlands.
“That same year, the Ethiopian government sentenced me for life along with several other opposition leaders. The others were later pardoned and were asked to sign a pardon letter. Because I was in the Netherlands, I didn’t know of the letter and couldn’t sign. That’s why I have now been given this death sentence. It’s a bizarre story.”
The refugee has not yet spoken to the Dutch government about his death sentence, but he is planning to contact the Foreign Affairs Ministry to inform them.
The most important factor in the Ethiopian government’s behaviour, he says, is “ethnic domination”.
“In Ethiopia, we have 80 million people from five ethnic groups. Political power is concentrated in the hands of one ethnic group, which accounts for around 6 percent of the population. That causes a huge political imbalance.”