A notorious gang band army, known as Liyu Police, trained by British government money, is responsible for committing human misery, including rape, robbery and death of innocent women and children in Ogaden and Oromia. UK is a partaker of genocide in Ethiopia.

(Common Dreams) — The UK Government is training senior members of Ethiopia’s security sector, despite the illegal detention of a British father on the country’s death row. The news comes as 53 MPs and peers call on the Foreign Office to secure Andy Tsege’s return from unlawful detention.

Somali Liyu Police launches cross-boarder attacks against the Oromo

A freedom of information request by international human rights organisation Reprieve has shown that senior members of Ethiopia’s police, military, justice ministry and diplomatic corps are studying for an MSc in Security Sector Management, as part of a UK-aid funded program.

The revelations come amid growing concerns for British father of three Andy Tsege, who is on death row in Ethiopia.

53 MPs and peers from across the political spectrum have written to the Foreign Office to request that ministers “make representations – privately or publicly – for Mr Tsege’s release.” The politicians, representing the Conservatives, Labour, SNP, Lib Dems, Greens and SDLP, criticise what they say is a set of “limited demands” that the government has made to Ethiopia so far, in relation to his case.

27 Ethiopian soldiers killed by ONLF army in the Ogaden Region

Mr Tsege has been imprisoned unlawfully in Ethiopia since 2014, when he was kidnapped at an international airport and rendered to a secret Ethiopian prison. Mr Tsege is a prominent critic of Ethiopia’s ruling party, and his ordeal is thought to be linked to a wider crackdown on dissent in the country. In 2009, while Mr Tsege was living in London, an Ethiopian court handed him an in absentia death sentence.

The Foreign Office has stopped short of requesting Mr Tsege’s return to the UK, instead focusing on a regular consular and legal access for him. However, the Ethiopian authorities have only agreed to sporadic consular access, while Mr Tsege has been prevented from contacting a lawyer. Ethiopian officials have said Mr Tsege faces no prospect of appealing his death sentence.

In 2014, the Department for International Development told Reprieve that it had cancelled a similar MSc programme because of “concerns about risk and value for money”. However, the programme was restarted several months later under the £1bn Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF), with the oversight of the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

This month, a Parliamentary committee on the National Security Strategy issued a report that heavily criticised the government’s use of the CSSF, saying the Fund was dogged by a “fundamental lack of transparency”. They also warned that CSSF projects carried a risk of UK complicity in abuses.

Ethiopian officials told the ‘Ethiopian Reporter’ newspaper in 2016 that “some 90% of the senior officials currently serving in Ethiopia’s intelligence institutions have completed their masters degree in the UK on subjects related to security.” They added: “The courses are fully financed by the UK government.”

Commenting, Harriet McCulloch, a deputy director at Reprieve, said:

“It’s shameful that the UK is funding Ethiopia’s security sector, when Ethiopian forces are holding a British dad illegally on death row. MPs are right to express serious concern over the government’s approach. Boris Johnson must explain why his department is training Ethiopian security officials, but refusing to negotiate Andy Tsege’s return home to Britain.”

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Make Somalia Great Again gift, and ‘day of action’ for UK migrants

The newly-elected president of Somalia has received a unique present from the US ambassador, and migrant workers in the UK take a day off to participate in a nationwide campaign.

Make Somalia, not America, Great Again

US President Donald Trump’s ubiquitous Make America Great Again cap has now made inroads into Somalia, but in a slightly unusual fashion.

Stephen Schwartz, the US ambassador to Somalia, recently met President Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo” Mohamed in the capital Mogadishu.

Mr Mohamed, a dual citizen of Somalia and the US, was elected by MPs as the new president of the war-torn African nation in early February.

So Mr Schwartz, who was appointed as the first US envoy to Somalia in 25 years in June last year, held a meeting with Mr Mohamed to solidify ties with the new administration.

Mr Mohamed is known as “Farmajo”, from the Italian for cheese, due to his love for the product

But thanks to the power of social media, it has come to light that there was more to the meeting that met the eye.

A picture taken from the meeting and tweeted by the US Mission in Somalia made it clear that the US ambassador had presented a gift to Mr Mohamed – a Make Somalia Great Again white and blue cap, matching the colours of the Somali flag.

Needless to say, the cap is highly reminiscent of the Make America Great Again red cap made popular by President Trump during his campaign last year.

The Make America Great Again cap became synonymous with Mr Trump’s campaign

There is only one drawback. Somalia is one of the nations included in Mr Trump’s executive order that put a temporary halt on immigration from seven majority Muslim countries. The ban was later suspended by a court ruling.

President Mohamed said earlier this month that he would hold discussions with the White House to have his country removed from the list.

“It is part of my responsibility to talk about this issue with the US government by conveying our message to the president and his government that the Somali people are really good, hard working people,” he was quoted as saying.

“They raise their families in the United States. So we will see if he can change that policy and exclude Somalis from that list.”

Regardless, Mr Mohamed described his meeting with the US ambassador as “very productive”.

Predictably, there were people on social media who initially wondered whether the official Twitter page of the US Mission was a parody account, or the meeting was a setup.

Another user pointed out that Mr Schwartz was born in Buffalo, New York; where Mr Mohamed spent most of his time when he resided in the US.

---

Protesters descended on London’s Parliament Square

UK migrants in nationwide walkout

Some migrant workers in different parts of the UK are taking time off work today to stage a day of action to showcase their contributions to the UK economy.

The nationwide campaign, known as One Day Without Us, follows on from the Day Without Immigrants protests which took place in the United States last week.

#1DayWithoutUS has been one of the top trends in the UK today, generating more than 32,000 tweets. Some have been sharing photos from gatherings in their town and cities.

Organisers say they are “ordinary people from all walks of life” and “include Leavers and Remainers”.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan is one of the most high-profile politicians declaring support for the campaign.

Earlier, he tweeted: “To the one million European citizens living and working in London: thank you for the huge contribution you make to our city.”

Migrants had been urged to bring the flags of their home countries to rallies in order to highlight the diversity of foreign nationals who work in Britain.

The ‘flog mob’ campaign aimed to highlight the variety of foreign workers

Some used the hashtag to share stories about how they or their parents first came to the UK.

However, others used the occasion to draw attention to some of the complexities around the issue of migration.

“If they don’t like it here they should go somewhere more acceptable to them,” tweeted one user.

Referring to a piece about the UK being the “third most traffic-congested” country in Europe, editor-in-chief of Breitbart News London Raheem Kassam tweeted: “But it’s definitely nothing to do with infrastructure not being equipped for mass migration, right?”

By the UGC and Social Media Team

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Family identifies man killed during jewelry store robbery

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (News 3 Channel)  — Police identify the jewelry store employee murdered while at work just feet from his one-year-old son.

Police are looking for the person who stabbed Noah Ashene to death Thursday afternoon at Golden Jewelers on Winchester near Kirby.

Noah Ashene

“I heard a little boy cry, and I didn’t think much of it,” said Brandi Montgomery.

Ten minutes later, she knew something wasn’t right.

“I heard her screaming, ‘Somebody help me! He’s been shot! He’s been killed,'” said Montgomery.

She ran out of her pet grooming shop to Golden Jewelers next door.

“Looked in the window and saw him n the floor covered in blood,” she said.

Police said they found Ashene dead behind the counter.

Officer said he was robbed and stabbed to death.

Friday, a sign was posted on the front door saying the store was closed for the day, but that didn’t keep customers from stopping by.

“It’s just sad. Somebody brought him flowers,” said Montgomery.

Noah with his family

That grief all too familiar.

On Tuesday, police said a manager just locked up his barber shop on Winchester when a woman robbed and shot him twice.

He’s in the hospital.

In December, a 72-year-old record store owner was robbed and killed in his store, and in November, a mother working her second job delivering pizzas was murdered during an attempted robbery.

In 2016, MPD reported 30 out of 228 homicides stemmed from a robbery. An increase compared to years past.

“It’s just crazy to come to work every day and fear that you’re not going to get robbed,” said Montgomery.

She said she’ll miss seeing Ashene, her nice neighbor. She’s praying for his family and his one-year-old son.

“Looked just like him. I called him his mini-me. He was just, It’s just so sad,” said Montgomery.

MPD is looking for the man who killed Ashene.

They are also aware of the increase in robbery-related homicides, and created a Violent Crime Unit to help with every case.

GoFundMe is here Noah Ashene

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Famine threatens millions in the Horn of Africa as Washington prepares expanded war in Somalia

By Thomas Gaist

A boy watches sacks of food drop to the ground during a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) airdrop close to Rubkuai village in Unity State, northern South Sudan, February 18, 2017. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola/File Photo

(WSWS) — Even as starvation and malnutrition threaten more than 10 million lives in the Horn of Africa countries of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, the United States and its allies are preparing a massive expansion of military operations throughout the region.

“With nearly half its population (five million people) facing severe food and water shortages, Somalia is now on the verge of a famine. Malnutrition rates across Somalia have already reached critical levels and are expected to worsen in the coming weeks. Thousands of families are on the move in search of food and water, and many are now crossing the border into Ethiopia,” Save the Children noted.

The Save the Children report states further that at least 70 percent of those children screened in the Dollo Ado refugee camp in Ethiopia show signs of malnutrition. Drought conditions in that country are forcing children to drop out of school, putting them at risk of early marriage and forced migration.

According to Save the Children, the upsurge in hunger is the outcome of below-average rainfall during successive wet seasons, causing food and water prices to skyrocket, herds to die and crops to fail. Cereal prices are at record highs in Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania, while maize yields are down across southern Africa as a result of new pests including the fall armyworm.

According to the World Food Program (WFP), the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa is producing a humanitarian crisis in Somalia and driving urgent needs in Kenya and Ethiopia. “The number of people in crisis and emergency food insecurity levels [Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) 3 or above] now stands at 11.2 million people, with 2.9 million in Somalia, 5.6 million in Ethiopia, and 2.7 million in Kenya,” the WFP reported.

The WFP found that the drought is developing alongside an escalating humanitarian and political crisis in South Sudan, where more than 5 million people are in need of urgent assistance and more than 1.2 million South Sudanese have already fled to neighboring countries.

“In six months, we’ll be facing a catastrophe and a famine on a scale we cannot imagine,” United Nations humanitarian chief for Somalia Peter de Clercq said Thursday. UN Food and Agriculture director Maria Semedo warned African governments that without massive influx of food aid, the situation will become “a disaster like the famine in 2011.”

The Horn of Africa is already plagued by mass hunger. Ten million Ethiopians went hungry last year as a result of drought, and 6 million are currently in dire need of food assistance. More than half of Somalis lack access to adequate nutrition, according to the latest UN figures.

Nearly 40 percent of Kenyan children experience stunted growth as a result of inadequate nutrition, according to the WFP.

Amid the developing humanitarian disaster in the region, President Barack Obama approved the sale of $400 million in weapons to the Kenyan military on the day before he left office in January. Nairobi announced shortly after that on January 29 that it would soon dispatch troops to support the US-backed regime in South Sudan.

The civil war in South Sudan has reached “catastrophic proportions for civilians,” with “record numbers” fleeing their homes under threat of “mass atrocities,” according to a secret UN report leaked to AFP.

Six years after its establishment as the world’s “newest country,” the US-backed South Sudanese regime is barely able to pay its soldiers enough to eat. Inflation stands at over 800 percent and “cash is so devalued it barely buys food for a week,” local sources told Reuters.

Although presented as a “natural disaster,” famine in Africa is ultimately the product of more than a century of oppression of the continent by world imperialism amplified by the ongoing crisis and breakdown of world capitalism. The poverty of the African masses, the absence of basic social infrastructure, and the reliance of much of the population on subsistence farming have persisted even as Western companies and governments have extracted vast sums of wealth from the continent.

Africa has repeatedly suffered major famines during the post-World War II period, including: Somalia (1991-1992, 2010-2012), Sudan (1998), Ethiopia (1958, 1983-85), Uganda (1980-83), the Sahel desert region (1968-1972) and Nigeria (1967-70).

Even as bourgeois economists celebrate numerically high economic growth rates in a handful of African countries, conditions for the vast majority of Africans have only deteriorated further during the 25 years since the dissolution of the USSR. The wealth creation that has occurred has gone exclusively to benefit a small layer of African elites and their American and European backers. Africa’s governments have abandoned anything resembling nationalist or “left” policies aimed at defending the interests of their populations from the predations of foreign capital. They have moved steadily to deepen their integration into the US-dominated capitalist world order.

The incompetency of Africa’s elites to meet the social needs of the African masses is matched only by their enthusiasm for waging wars, invariably sponsored by the US and NATO powers. The past quarter century has seen a huge explosion of military violence and inter-state conflict on the continent. Between 1990 and 2011, the African continent saw over 400 armed conflicts, according to research presented by Dr. Paul Williams of the Elliott School of International Affairs during a January conference held by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). Williams also reported that between 2011 and 2017, the total number of wars in Africa grew by 60 percent.

The United States has repeatedly seized on famines to escalate its military operations on the continent. The 1992-1993 American-led military intervention in Somalia, “Operation Restore Hope,” was launched in the name of insuring food security to the population. During the 2006 and 2011 famines in Somalia, Washington backed invasions led by Ethiopian military forces, who blockaded much of the country, while tens of thousands starved, in the name of combating the Islamist militia al Shabaab.

American-backed military forces have been operating on Somali soil continuously since the 2006 invasion. In 2007, African Union (AU) forces deployed to Mogadishu in support of the US-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Ethiopian forces were withdrawn in 2009, but returned as part of US-backed Kenyan-led intervention beginning in October 2011.

In 2014, US media confirmed that American forces have been secretly active in Somalia from the very beginning of the Ethiopian-led invasion, further implicating American imperialism in a war that has produced thousands of officially registered deaths and displaced more than 1 million Somalis.

The past year has seen numerous signs that a US military escalation in Somalia is being prepared. American soldiers are increasingly involved in open combat and Washington is spurring Kenya to assume a larger military role. In October 2016, unnamed “senior military officials” informed the New York Times that 200-300 US Special Forces soldiers have been operating jointly with Kenyan and Ugandan troops, carrying out “more than a half-dozen raids per month,” inside Somalia.

In November, the Obama administration expanded the Pentagon’s authority to wage war in Somalia. The new “Somalia campaign” is based on “a blueprint for warfare which President Obama has embraced and will pass along to his successor,” official sources told the Times in October.

US Special Forces, in coordination with troops from the Somali National Army, as well as the Kenyan, Ugandan and Ethiopian militaries, are organizing warfare from the capital Mogadishu. US intelligence officers are involved in interrogating prisoners, and air strikes organized by American forces are claimed to have killed hundreds of Al Shabaab fighters in recent months.

US forces were directly involved in combat in southern Somalia alongside Somali National Army (SNA) units in January, including raids against the southern port city of Kismayo. American commandos are also involved in operations in Kenya’s Boni forest, which lies on Somalia’s southwestern border. Kenya’s military has steadily escalated its operations in the area since 2015, and is constructing a 435-mile-long wall along its eastern border.

As millions face starvation, the US and its regional allies are engaged in cutthroat political struggles and intrigues. Rivalries within Africa’s national elites, amplified and manipulated by the US and European powers, are setting the stage for an array of potential new conflicts to be overseen by President Donald Trump.

Forces within the US-backed Egyptian and South Sudanese regimes are conspiring to destabilize Ethiopia, according to African media. In January, a “dirty deal” was allegedly struck between Egyptian military dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and South Sudan President Salva Kiir to back opposition groups, including the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF).

Similar meetings were held between al-Sisi and his Eritrean counterpart, Isaias Afwerki, in Cairo, as “a deliberate move” and “to pressure Addis Ababa,” according to Egyptian sources cited by the New Arab. Cairo is anxious over Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD) project, which would give Ethiopia the ability to choke off the supply of Nile river water north through Sudan and Egypt.

In a phone call last month with Sisi, Trump pledged US military support to the dictatorship in its so-called war on terror in Egypt and across the continent. “President Trump underscored the United States remains strongly committed to the bilateral relationship, which has helped both countries overcome challenges in the region for decades,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer stated at a press briefing.

The only response of the imperialist powers to the vast human catastrophe brewing in the Horn of Africa is escalated war and the further destabilization of African nation states, aimed at re-imposing colonial-style rule. The most basic demands for peace and bread can only be achieved through a movement of the entire African working class united across all national and ethnic lines, fighting for socialism against imperialism and its national bourgeois collaborators.

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– President Uhuru Kenyatta expected to land in Somalia for the inauguration of Mohamed AbdulIahi Farmajo the new president of Somalia

– Farmajo won Somalia’s February election defeating 19 candidates

– Somalia’s capital is in lock down as leaders from East Africa attend the inauguration

President Uhuru Kenyatta.

(TUKO) — President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to land in Mogadishu, Somalia on Wednesday, February 22

Uhuru’s visit to the troubled Somalia capital is for the inauguration of its new President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo.

Mogadishu is in complete lock down as Uhuru and other East African are expected for the historical event.

Kenya is a close ally of Somalia and has a large military presence in the country fighting al-Shabaab.

Special forces from the Somalia National Army (SNA), police and the African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom) have created a security cordon around the venue of the ceremony.

Mogadishu is in complete lock down as Uhuru and other East African are expected for the historical inauguration.

Security forces are also on high alert as threats of attack from terror group al-Shabaab is highly likely.

Earlier this week the militants released a statement referring to the new Somalia president as an apostate and have vowed to fight him.

Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo.

On Thursday, February 16, the militants launched a mortar attack on the presidential palace popularly known as Villa Somalia in Mogadishu.

The militants fired six mortars at the residence with some shells hitting the presidential complex.

The attack on the palace occurred as a ceremony involving newly elected Somalia president and his predecessor Hassan Sheikh was going on.

Airports, roads and major streets in the capital will remain closed until the leaders attending the inauguration including Uhuru are safely back home.

Guests attending the ceremony will be screened before being let into the venue.

Farmajo won the February Somalia election, defeating 19 candidates including former leader Hassan Sheikh.

Voters in the election were limited to 275 members of parliament and 54 senators.

Watch a video of Farmajo below.

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UNICEF Ethiopia Humanitarian SitRep #1 – Reporting Period January 2017

Child at a health post in SNNP, receiving treatment for acute amlnutrion @UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Mersha

For Full report Click Here

Funding Resource Report Click Here

Highlights:

• The revised hotspot woredas list (December 2016) classified 34 additional hotspot woredas as compared with the last classification which took place in July 2016. Of the 192 hotspot woredas, 67 are found in the Somali region, 43 are in Oromia, nine are in SNNP and 23 are in Afar region.
• UNICEF has procured 200,000 tubes of scabies treatment cream permethrin 5 per cent, and 200,000 more tubes are in the pipeline. A total of 750,000 tubes have been procured by UNICEF since early 2016.
• In Somali region, with UNICEF support, the Regional Water Bureau (RWB) deployed a mobile maintenance team (three more teams to be deployed soon) to accelerate the rehabilitation of boreholes. UNICEF is supporting the RWB in the rehabilitation of 56 non-functional boreholes across the region.
• In January, a new influx of 3,062 asylum seekers from Somalia arrived in Ethiopia. The asylum seekers are fleeing conflict compounded by food insecurity.

SITUATION IN NUMBERS*

• 5.6 million people* require relief food assistance in 2017
• 304,300 children* are expected to require treatment for SAM in 2017
• 9.2 million people* require access to safe drinking water and sanitation services
• 2 million school aged children* require emergency school feeding and learning materials assistance
• There are 793,321 refugees in Ethiopia (UNHCR, December 2016)
• UNICEF requires US$110.5 million for its humanitarian work in 2017 (HAC, 2017)

HRD, January 2017

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Somalia: What are the challenges facing President Farmajo as he is inaugurated today?

Farmajo pledged to tackle threat of al-Shabaab violence, famine and corruption.

Somalia’s newly elected President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo addresses lawmakers after winning the vote at the airport in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on 8 February 2017 Reuters/Feisal Omar

(IBTimes) — Elected on 8 February in a landmark vote in Somalia, President Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo” Mohamed will be inaugurated today (22 February) in the capital, Mogadishu.

Farmajo will be the ninth president of Somalia since independence and the international community hopes his time in office will mark the start of a new era of stability in the war-torn nation.

During his electoral campaign, the former prime minister promised to fight emboldened Islamist terror group al-Shabaab, widespread corruption, and improve the daily life of Somalis amid a mostly man-made famine. The task ahead is immense.

Sunday’s suicide bombing in Mogadishu, which left 39 people dead and around 50 others injured, was a stark reminder of the number-one priority to restore security across the country.

To achieve this, Farmajo told representatives of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) he has given himself two years to eradicate al-Shabaab.

The group has been waging war against high-level government and civilian targets for more than six years in Somalia and neighbouring countries including Kenyaand Ethiopia, where Farmajo reportedly sent emissaries to reaffirm Somalia’s intention to work together to eradicate terrorism.

An internally displaced man looks at the carcasses of his goats and sheep in the outskirts of Dahar town of Puntland state in north-eastern Somalia, one of the areas most affected by the drought, on 15 December 2016 Reuters/Feisal Omar

As well as the threat of al-Shabaab, Farmajo currently faces a humanitarian emergency, where drought conditions are threatening Somalia’s already fragile population still reeling from decades of conflict.

Almost half the population – 6.2 million people – are facing acute food insecurity and in need of humanitarian assistance. This includes some 185,000 children, who are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year. The United Nations International Children’s Fund (Unicef) suggested this figure is expected to rise to 270,000 in the next few months.

The first act of Farmajo as president has been to convene a crisis meeting on the humanitarian emergency.

The new president will also have to deal with the legacy of the country’s fraught clan system. The traditional clan system allows for the denial of human rights to minority clans, who thus face economic marginalisation, according to Somali human rights activist Fadumo Dayib.

Pupils look through a broken window as they ride in their school bus at Hamar boarding school in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, in this file photo taken on 2 April 2012. Reuters/Ismail Taxta

Bitter rivalries between the groups sparked Somalia’s civil war which engulfed the country in 1991.

Farmajo has also set himself the priority of tackling rampant corruption, and forming the country’s first functioning government in more than 25 years.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, when it drifted into its full-scale civil war. The internationally-backed unity government formed in 2000 was seen as weak and dysfunctional by many Somalis.

“I personally promise to build a good government which deserves your confidence and that can compete with the world. I want to compete with the world in terms of development and progress and you have to work with the government in terms of security,” Farmajo said after his election win.

It remains difficult to assess whether four years will be enough for the new president to achieve results in a country where this scourge has been an entrenched culture for decades. Somalia is ranked as the most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International NGO.

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Toxic political agenda is dehumanising entire groups, Amnesty warns

NGO’s annual report warns that aggressive political rhetoric is creating a ‘hostile climate for refugees and migrants’

The report pointed to a 57% rise in reported hate crimes in the UK in the week after the Brexit vote. Photograph: Tom Nicholson/Rex/Shutterstock

(The Guardian) — Toxic political rhetoric with echoes of 1930s hate speech is stirring up violence worldwide – including in the UK and US, Amnesty International has warned.

Kerry Moscoguiri, Amnesty UK’s director of campaigns, said that campaigning for the Brexit referendum “was a particular low point, with all too real consequences” – pointing to a 57% spike in reported hate crime the week after the vote.

She accused the British government of “creating a hostile climate for refugees and migrants” as it shirked its responsibilities to them, particularly unaccompanied children.

But the UK was not alone in seeing vicious rhetoric targeting the most vulnerable, as 2016 saw leaders worldwide peddling “the dangerous idea that some people are less human than others”, according to Amnesty’s director of crisis research Tirana Hassan.

She pointed particularly to violence stirred up by Donald Trump, right-wing Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who called a controversial referendum on refugees, and the Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte who has launched a war on drugs that has cost thousands of lives.

“This report documents the very real human consequences of politicians like Trump, Orbán, Duterte, wielding a toxic agenda that hounds, scapegoats and dehumanises entire groups of people,” Hassan said.

The attacks threaten not just human lives but the value system enshrined in international law after the second world war, warned the NGO.

“When language around ‘taking our country back’ and ‘making America great again’ is coupled with proposals to treat EU migrants like bargaining chips or to ban refugees on the grounds of religion, it fosters deep hatred and mistrust and sends a strong message that some people are entitled to human rights and others aren’t,” said Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK.

“Have we forgotten that human rights protections were created after the mass atrocities of the second world war as a way of making sure that ‘never again’ actually meant ‘never again’?”

It was a year filled with contempt for those ideals, Amnesty warned, from the almost “routine” bombing of hospitals in Syria

and Yemen, to violent suppression of dissent and attacks on refugees and migrants.

Worldwide, 36 countries broke international law and forced refugees back into conflict zones or places where their rights were at risk, it said.

The report was particularly damning of the failure to halt the brutal bombing of rebel-held east Aleppo, in the final stages of a Russian-backed campaign, when chemical weapons and bunker-buster bombs were used against civilians. That inaction “called to mind similar failures in Rwanda and Srebrenica in 1994 and 1995”, the report said, and was a damning indictment of major powers and the UN, paralysed by their rivalries as civilians suffered.

“Never have these failures been as apparent as in December 2016, when we all witnessed the graphic and brutal bombardment of Aleppo, when war crimes were essentially beamed into our living rooms,” Moscogiuri said.

The British government is criticised in the report for stepping up digital surveillance with the new “snooper’s charter”, which allows the state disturbing access to private lives of its citizens.

“By introducing one of the broadest regimes for mass surveillance of any country in the world, the UK took a significant step towards a reality where the right to privacy is simply not recognised,” the report said.

It was not all bleak. Amnesty also noted how fierce repression had inspired courage and resistance around the world, from the people of the Gambia who threw off 22 years off dictatorship in a peaceful election, to the Olympic protest of Ethiopian marathon medallist Feyisa Lilesa, and the young “clown of Aleppo”.

Lilesa drew attention to the struggles of his Oromo tribe by crossing his arms over his head as he reached the finish line, a gesture of defiance that could potentially have cost him the medal.

The 24-year-old entertainer Anas al-Basha chose to stay in besieged Aleppo to bring some distraction and relief to its children, and died there in an airstrike in December.

“Ultimately, the charge that human rights is a project of the elite rings hollow,” the report said. “People’s instincts for freedom and justice do not simply wither away.”

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Sidama, 15^th Year on Since Loqee Massacre whilst You are Tolerating the TPLF’s Regime and Your Own Worst Quislings?

(Open Letter to Sidama People in Diaspora and the Sidama Land).

By One of the Sdiama’s Human Right Defenders

February 22, 2017

My Beloved Sidama Nation,

In today’s Ethiopia, you have got more pressing Quest than any other people and nations of the country for a single important reason. I’m not arguing contrary to the fact that, the Sidama nation is also sharing similar fates of brutality as the rest nations and peoples of the country, such as Oromo, Ogadenia, Amhara, Benshalgul, Gambella, Gedeo, Hadiya, Afar, Konso, Kambata, Gurage, and the rest. However, in addition to the above, you’re differently oppressed in Ethiopia by TPLF’s regime. To date as the rest of various nations’ peoples, you remain the subject of similar ongoing state terrorism under the State of Emergency. Having been, you’re also the subject of surveillances, under the radar of ‘one to five’ secretive spying apparatuses terrorizing nation and peoples of the country, like in North Korea.

The Sidama Nation Globally Marks the 14th Commemorative Anniversary of Sidama Loqqee Massacre

Besides, I’m appealing to you to understand the fact that, given the size of your population and economic contribution, you’re treated differently, as you have been time and again denied your elementary (but symbolically important) rights to regional self-determination. I reiterate this, as long as the current regime entertains language and culture based ethnic federalism, your quest remains legal and legitimate. Contrary to this, the TPLF’s regime and its cadres in Sdiama land and the entire south of Ethiopia are 100% illegal. The TPLF’s regime must either repudiate its constitution or wholly respects it. This applies to all regions including Oromia, Ogadenia, Amhara and the rest. You must know this in black and white. If you are unware of this fact due to various reasons, I would like to remove your blurry vision, both from your inner and outer eyes. As a Sidama nation, you have been differently enslaved by TPLF’s criminal regime for the last 26 years; and to date you remain volunteer victim with your so called bogus returnee intellectuals who’re setting the worst example for the new generation.

Invitation to the Sidama Martyrs’ commemoration and inclusive conference -2016

In addition to the ongoing demands of the rest peoples of Ethiopia, the TPLF’s regime has demonstrated that, it disrespects you, and has practically shown this to you on several occasions. It has belittled you more than any other peoples of the country by reducing you, to less than 20,000 populated Adere regional State. Additionally, TPLF always assigns those Sidama quislings such as the infamous ‘Shiferaw Shigute’, whom you most detest to stage-manage the process of your subjugation. Your wealth is in constant process of being looted; you’re systematically impoverished to be tamed to eternal subjugation. As a Sidama, you seem to be choosing unsettling national disgrace in the face of ongoing slavery in your own soil. You don’t need to search for any justification than, the denial of your rights to nominally administering your region as per the rights enshrined in Ethiopian constitution (although it’s fake, you have got full right to demand it). As these rights are at least nominally granted to the rest nations including the smallest Adere nation; that became a region within Oromia regional state, your silence is socio-politically incorrect, morally and culturally alien to your heroic belief.

The Sons and Daughters of The Nation,

I know for sure that my nation is gallant, and only has been constrained by variety of reasons. I know that you’re encircled by the invading army of the regime thus constantly watched over and intimidated on daily basis. I know that the regime has systematically brain washed and bombarded you, day and night with unprecedented level of lies and deceits; using the Sidama radio which has been established for good cause by the Sidama’s highly respected intellectuals to serve development purposes until it has been taken by TPLF’s Sidama cadres, during the period of post May 24, 2002’s Loqee Sidama massacre; to use it as their propaganda channel. I also know that their infamous cadres such as Shiferaw Shigute have stretched their agents to spy on you to the extent of villages and neighborhoods to stifle your movements. I know the situation is very difficult. However, I equally believe that it is not impossible to reject it.

Why the Eerie Silence of the Peoples of Ethiopia As State Terrorism Mainly Rampages Oromia?

Therefore, I would like you to understand one irrefutable fact that you’re on a cross road. Either you must break such barbed wire and defy TPLF’s barbaric system with all possible means; or else choose to remain subservient to ongoing oppression – thereby have no future for yourself and the generation to come. This is the only choice you’re left with. The rest options have failed time and again in the last 26 years’ reign of terror.

The Sons and Daughters of Farsighted Sidama Forefathers and Mothers,

I urge you to ask yourself series of questions including: being over 5.5 million ‘why the Sidama is denied these elementary rights granted to the rest peoples of Ethiopia? Did you ask yourself, ‘Why TPLF’s late PM Meles Zenawi merged, previously 5 regional states of the south of Ethiopia in which the Sidama nation used to be a regional state? Have you ever genuinely believed that TPLF’s regime has done any good for the Sidama nation for the last 26 years compared to its economic contribution? Did the Sidama nation receive 20% out of 100% it deserves in the past 26 years of TPLF’s reign? Don’t you have courage to push with these fundamental questions until they are practically addressed? Are you afraid of physical death? Do you know what you fear to remain in such eerie silence? Do you fear, the fear itself? Do you want to know how to conquer fear? Do you fear death which comes with bullet? Do you prefer dying undignified death slowly with poverty, deprivation and slavery? Do you know that the Sidama nation as a national entity is at the verge of destruction if you remain subservient silent? Do you know the difference between slowly dying undignified death due to manmade hunger and deprivation and dying with bullet whilst defending own rights?

Moreover, have you ever questioned the fact that, ‘Who is the TPLF to dictate you with its terms and conditions whilst expropriating your wealth by leaving your father and mothers with their families destitute? Who is TPLF and its Cadres to uproot the Sidama peasants from their ancestral lands to trade with it by leaving them penniless beggars in their own soil? Do you tolerate the ongoing subjugation and dehumanization of your nation? Do you dispute this fact, thus choose to remain docile slave? And for how long? Do you think that the Sidama land, for instance in Hawassa and its vicinities taken away from the Sidama peasants should belong to the Tigre Mafias, simply because they have told you so? Does the Sidama Diaspora needs to beg the Sidama land from the regime and its mindless Sidama cadres? Don’t you believe that the land entirely belongs to you as its only legitimate owner? If not, don’t you believe that, you become coward to beg your own land from the enemy instead of claiming or taking it with all cost it may demands? Who has given the TPLF’s Mafia and its quislings an omnipotent power to rule over you and your land? So far, the nations’ new generation has failed to address these fundamental questions by remaining subservient to TPLF’s barbaric rule.

Additionally, I also know that, when you’ve attempted to peacefully demand these rightful rights, your sons and daughter were gunned down on broad day light by TPLF’s terrorizing agents, such as ‘Agi-Azi’, national army, police and security personnel in your own soil. Therefore, on May 24, 2002 alone, over 69 Sidama civilians have been executed and over 200 wounded – for the crime, no one has been held into account until today, while the 15^th commemorative anniversary of Sidama Loqee massacre approaches. Tens of thousands of Sidama civilians have been arrested following the Loqee massacre of the Sidama civilians. To date you’re continually intimidated, terrorized and silenced. You also seem to be comfortable in your death row although the situation is extremely unsettling. But, for how long will you tolerate and remain silent?

The Sons and Daughters of Gallant Sidama Nation,

Don’t you think better than self-deprecating Sidama intellectuals who went back to beg the regime whom they have repeatedly berated for over a decade? Don’t you think better than, those national disgraces who went and repeatedly go back from Europe and America to beg plots of lands from their own soli, therefore keep their mouth shut? For example, some groups of such Sidama’s disowned intellectuals have been granted freedom to live in the UK claiming that they belong to the Sidama nation; and that their nation is under oppression of the TPLF’s regime. Besides, after securing their citizenship in the UK, some of the Sidama’s worst quislings, went back to Sidama land to conspire with the TPLF’s regime that is dehumanizing their own people.

The two Sidama quislings who went back to conspire with the regime, by leaving their children and wives (over 10 Sidama souls between them) on various UK streets to be looked after by the social service of the United Kingdom. They are also unlawfully costing UK’s tax payer’s tens of thousands of monies every year on each family members they’ve left behind. The UK’s home office (government) must do something about these immoral criminals. Such historic failures include ‘Seyum Y. Hamesso’ (PhD) and Mulugeta B. Daye (PhD). The two of the Sidama’s national disgrace are swallowing their regurgitation, once they have vomited whilst they seemed to be the supporters of the Sidama national cause. As we speak, these both remain in Sidama land begging the TPLF’s criminal regime and its cadres such as the most detested Shifraw Shigute, for plots of land and employment opportunities. Once, they have vehemently denounced the TPLF’s brutal regime for its bestiality to their own nation and the wider peoples of Ethiopia. Paradoxically, they are bowing down to the very regime and its illegitimate cadres they have denounced previously. The Sidama nation must reject these worst quislings who have abandoned their own children, thus good for nothing.

My Beloved Sidama People,

As your Kush cousins, such as Oromo, you had an envy-worth governance under your just and egalitarian systems whose ethos underpin humanity and human values at large. Your governance under your Luwa system has been regarded as one of the best democracy in the world by famous Western Anthropology professors such J. Hammer, S. Stanley and numerous others, between three and four decades ago. Regardless, the current regime and its predecessors have reduced your values and principles to subjugation and dehumanization. Slowly and systematically eroding your strength and belief, the current regime is completing the end of your legacy. If you can’t defend your noble identity in time, you are going to be taken to irreversibly disgraceful stage from where you may not be able to reclaim your noble culture as a proud nation. Besides, TPLF can show you an artificially masterminded identity, which will hardly equate to your genuine self; if you choose to remain as silent as you seem to be now.

The situation you’re in is neither correct nor acceptable. You must prepare yourself, to pay all costs for your freedom and dignity. You deserve much better and principled people to lead you than letting the worst quisling, such as Shiferaw Shigute’ to symbolize the Sidama nation, thereby bring ignominy on you.

Dear Sidama People, 

Having contributed over 30% of coffee (2012/13 CSA report) for export (in addition to other cash crops and taxi contribution), for the country’s hard currency, you’ve received nothing in the past 26 years. All your wealth is enriching Tigray politicians, their military commanders and handful of Sidama loyal affiliates, whose bellies are bulging with excessive beer, whisky and overfeeding- like Shiferaw Shigute. Even if you receive a trickle from your coffee contribution, those Sidama Zone administrators who are always handpicked by TPLF, are inaptly inadequate as their loyalty exclusively remain for TPLF. Therefore, apart from a few Sidama heroes who have stood their ground to defend the Sidama’s national interests over a decade and a half ago, the rest Sidama cadres who have been hand-picked time and again were there to serve TPLF’s brutal regime; without raising the slightest question on behalf of their own nation.

Moreover, the TPLF’s regime has time and again impoverished the Sidama nation not only by denying its annual budget, but also by stopping foreign (non-governmental organization-NGO) funded projects, instead directly channeling it to Tigray. This has been implemented by the direct order of late TPLF’s PM Meles Zenawi who has told all NGOs working in Sidama to unconditionally stop supporting the Sidama projects. He claimed that, Sidama is rich enough and it was moving faster than any other regions. Therefore, he declared that, if it is left at its pace, the Sidama can be the Ethiopia’s Japan within short period. Therefore, Mr Zenawi ordered that the Sidama nation never receive any development budget until the nation is reduced and reaches to the level of all systematically left behind, 55 nations of southern Ethiopia, which he brought together as a single regional state, after merging 5 regions into one.

Mr Zenawi has practically seen the potential of the Sidama professionals. He also saw that the Sidama had efficiently managed its projects using its own sons and daughters, within short period. He has seen that the project leaders have opened ‘Furra’ rural studies institution in Yirgalem town, first in its kind in the horn of Africa not only in Ethiopia, established Sidama radio program, built hundreds of health posts in the entire rural Sidama, constructed various rural roads linking Sidama community with one another, opened further primarily schools in various parts of the Sdiama land, built and developed thousands of water holes and outdoor toilet pits, created microfinance system for ruler community with special focus on empowering Women and girls, effectively worked to raise the awareness of the society to discourage harmful traditional practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), established SDC shopping complex in Hawssa city with the aim of self-sustenance and much more projects within short span of time . The SDP/SDC has acted as a responsible government by filling the vacuum left void by the successive Ethiopian rulers.

This was the time when late PM Meles Zanawi, Dr Kassu Ilala, Mr Hailemariam Desalegn (when he was southern regional president), Shiferaw Shigute, Dr Kebede Kanchula, Melese Marimo and the rest TPLF’s cadres have intervened and stopped the projects. The leaders of the projects were obliged to flee the country during the period of post May 24, 2002 Sidama Loqee massacre. The projects were taken over by the Cadres, and today all activities have been totally dismantled. Sidama has nothing left.

The purpose of this open letter is about letting the Sidama nation know, the hideous nature of the TPLF’s regime and that of its handpicked cadres who’re responsible for the death and destruction of the nation as a national entity. Like a cancerous cell destroys a healthy part of the body, the TPLF’s regime is slowly destroying the fabrics of the Sidama nation. Advocating ethnic based federalism, the TPLF proved its deceitful nature when it denied these rights, by amalgamating 56 distinct nations and peoples into one amorphous regional state where the Sidama nation is head butted day and night for its being threat to the regime. The Sidama’s noble cultural heritages are slowly vanishing.

Finally, My Beloved Sidama People, Men and Women, Young and Old,

Your ancestors were, brave, wise, farsighted and articulate who have secured your place for the present. You’re here today because of their heroic sacrifices paid on your behalf on yearly basis since 1890s colonial expansion of Menelik II. In turn, you’ve got generational obligation to safeguard your present to inherit it to your future generation. You don’t have any choice, but must stand your ground to reject the regime that is collectively enslaving you by denying your pride and dignity. You must show the brutalizing TPLF and its Sidama quislings, your determination, indefatigability, resolve and that you are indeed serious in defending your present and future. Therefore, it’s not the right time for the Sidama nation to show shred of support to TPLF’s regime and its cadres, be it in Sidama-land or in Diaspora.

Unite with likeminded nations and peoples including your nearest cousins, the Oromo nation and the rest peoples of Ethiopia whilst fighting the regime enslaving you. You must have courage and resolve to stand shoulder to shoulder with all oppressed people whilst striding towards reclaiming your denied national identity, pride and total emancipation form over 26 years’ slavery. The time is today, and there is no time for complacence.

Long Live for the Sidama nation and the other oppressed nations and peoples!

One of the Sdiama’s Human Right Defenders (February 22, 2017)

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The current leadership of the OPDO is now rocking the boat among the Revolutionary Democrats

Note: The TPLF regime tries to reduce the Oromo struggle to youth unemployment issue. Ridiculous! What about land grabbing? What about political and economical marginalization? What about human rights violations? What about mass killing and imprisonment? What about cultural infringement? What about total isolation and humiliation of the Oromo people ? etc. The TPLF is still fooling around!! Please read the following article. This is how international community is lured into a life support for the dying regime in Finfinnee. 

(Addis Fortune – Pro government website) –The manner in which the current leadership of the Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization (OPDO), Messrs Lemma Megerssa, chairman, and Worqneh Gebeyehu (PhD), deputy, came to power was conventional neither to the party itself nor to the Front that is a coalition of the four regional parties. What was a meeting called to discuss the 15-year path of the OPDO ended up replacing the former leaders, Muktar Kedir and Aster Mamo, to the surprise and displeasure of leaders of the other parties in the Front.

Yet, the rank and file of the OPDO brought Lemma and Worqneh into political power with the expressed mandate of asserting the party’s autonomous place in the coalition while remaining true to the ideological convictions of the Revolutionary Democrats, claims gossip.

Lemma for one is known to be an educated, intelligent and unyielding among second-generation leaders the Revolutionary Democrats have produced over the past two decades, claims gossip. With a background in regional intelligence, he is known in the circle of the EPRDFites for his legendary challenge to the late Meles Zenawi in the late 2000s on the latter’s alleged interventions in the autonomous affairs of the OPDO, gossip claims.

Little surprises thus that the current leadership of the OPDO is now rocking the boat among the Revolutionary Democrats, repossessing large tracts of plots and quarries held by federal agencies and powerful interests to respond to the demands of the youth in the regional state, gossip observed.

Arguably many attribute the popular discontent in the Oromia Regional State over the past two years to a youth bulge, a demographic development where the ratio of the non-working age group in a society declines compared to the working-age group. If the vast group in the non-working age is young and fails to find employment or jobs with satisfactory pays, the bulge becomes a demographic time bomb as the cases in Oromia and Amhara regional states amply demonstrated recently, says gossip.

There is now a new found mantra among the federal government and regional states, and contagious to development partners such as the UNDP and USAID, focusing on youth employment and opportunities, gossip observed.

Nonetheless, the popular discontent in these regions was partly influenced by political motivations of exercising autonomy and equity in the political process, says gossip. Particularly in Oromia, the inability of the ruling party there to assert itself in relations to the senior parties in the coalition has been – for too long – a subject of intense debates within the political elite and misgivings of the public, claims gossip.

It could perhaps be such pressures that pushed Lemma to author a political document presented to the executive committee members of the OPDO recently, which has been endorsed unanimously, gossip disclosed. However, there are others at the gossip corridors who claim that some members of the executive committee have expressed their misgivings on the content of the document and what drove it, claims gossip.

The document agreed on by the OPDO leadership has calls for six issues to be addressed as soon as possible, gossip disclosed. Among them is the demand for Oromiffaa to be included as a working language of the federal government; for the Addis Abeba City Administration to allocate plots, free of charge, to build schools where Oromiffaa is a language of instructions and for the city to finance them; the regional state’s right to share taxes collected by the Addis Abeba City Administration; and the fees Addis Abeba ought to pay for using natural resources from the outskirt areas under the regional state and its use of these areas for disposals, gossip revealed.

Many of these are issues espoused by the constitution but left unaddressed since its enactment 20 years ago, gossip recalled. The EPRDFites have a day of reckoning approaching; the document is soon to be presented to their executive committee meeting, gossip disclosed. How wise, sober and full-fledged they will be in negotiating these demands to the satisfactions of all parties with vested interests will be the test of their time, claims gossip.

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UK tenders to train Ethiopian paramilitaries accused of abuses

Note: This article was post 4 years ago, Thursday 10 January 2013. Since it is still relevant to the current activities and purposes of training the gang called Liyu  Police, we reposted it.

Exclusive: documents seen by the Guardian detail £13-£15m government funding for ‘special police’ in Ogaden region.

The Ethiopian army withdrew from the Ogaden region after complaints against soldiers’ conduct. Photograph: Peter Delarue/AFP/Getty Images

(The Guardian) — Millions of pounds of Britain’s foreign aid budget are to be spent on training an Ethiopian paramilitary security force that stands accused of numerous human rights abuses and summary executions.

The Guardian has seen an internal Department for International Development document forming part of a tender to train security forces in the Somali region of Ogaden, which lies within Ethiopia, as part of a five-year £13m–15m “peace-building” programme.

The document notes the “reputational risks of working alongside actors frequently cited in human rights violation allegations”. DfID insists that the training will be managed by NGOs and private companies with the goal of improving security, professionalism and accountability of the force, but Human Rights Watch has documented countless allegations of human rights abuses.

The Ethiopian government’s counter-insurgency campaign in Ogaden is spearheaded by the “special police”, also known as the “Liyu police”, which was created after federal security institutions effectively withdrew from the region after strong condemnation of the Ethiopian army’s conduct. The force is commanded by Abdullahi Werar, vice-president of eastern Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, who visited London this week.

The document says of the Liyu police: “The special police is a force of some 10,000-14,000 young Somalis mostly recruited from within the conflict zone (aka the Ogaden sub-region) using recruitment methods similar to those of insurgent groups.

“Training is minimal and loyalty within the force closely linked to personalities in leadership positions, of whom the president is paramount. Human rights abuses committed by the special police are believed to be more widespread and severe than those committed during the military campaign.

“However, having a Somali paramilitary force lead operations in the region is convenient for the federal government, who have been able to frame the conflict as internal regional politics rather than a government-led crackdown.”

Human Rights Watch said that the Liyu police has been implicated in serious abuses against civilians throughout the Somali region of Ethiopia. It also reports one case in which 10 men were summarily executed by the force in march last year.

Amnesty International’s Ethiopia researcher, Claire Beston said it was highly concerning that the UK was planning to engage with the special police.

She said: “There have been repeated allegations against the Liyu police of extrajudicial killings, rape, torture and other violations including destruction of villages and there is no doubt that the special police have become a significant source of fear in the region.”

The army also stands accused of orchestrating a mock execution of a Swedish journalist jailed in Ethiopia in 2011.

DfID’s assistance for Ethiopia, geopolitically a crucial ally for the UK and others against Islamic militancy in east Africa, is the aid body’s largest country programme, with a spend of £390m per year by 2014/15.

The DfID document sets out the terms and reference of a “security and justice component” for Ethiopia’s Somali region. It states that the goal of the programme, which will be managed by a DfID team, is “to build a more peaceful and inclusive Somali region”.

It adds: “The primary recipients of the services will be DfID for the design element and for the implementation of the regional government of the Somali Regional State, specifically state and non-state security and justice service providers.”

The DfID said: “The peace and development programme will be delivered in partnership with NGOs and UN organisations and no funding will go through the government of Ethiopia.”

Martin Schibbye, one of the two Swedish journalists jailed after illegally entering Ethiopia and meeting with ethnic Somali rebels, told the Guardian about his encounter with the army.

“We were shot and arrested in June 2011 and then we were first kept in the desert for two days,” said Schibbye, who was freed along with his photographer colleague, Johan Persson, after serving more than 400 days of an 11-year sentence.

He described being subjected to a mock execution in which soldiers walked him into the desert.

“They raised their rifles and … said that if you don’t tell the truth we will shoot you here and blame it on the rebels.”

The Ethiopian embassy did not respond to queries about the special police and the alleged treatment of Schibbye and Persson. Instead, it referred to a briefing that rejected allegations by Human Rights Watch of abuses in the Ogaden region.

“Investigations by the Donor Assistance Group, as well as repeated visits by embassies including several members of the European community, the UK and the US, and by a raft of NGOs working in the area have all failed to substantiate Human Rights Watch’s claims – which are as usual drawn largely, if not exclusively, from people outside the country, members of externally based armed opposition movements and other dissidents,” it said.

It added that the Ethiopian government was actively engaged in discussions with the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a rebel group in the region, “to encourage it to lay down its arms”.

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NASA: 7 Earth-size planets found orbiting star; could hold life

NASA has announced the discovery of seven exoplanets orbiting a dwarf star almost 40 light-years away. Former astronaut Mike Massimino spoke to CBSN about why this discovery is so significant.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – For the first time ever, astronomers have discovered seven Earth-size planets orbiting a nearby star — and these new worlds could hold life.

This cluster of planets is less than 40 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, according to NASA and the Belgian-led research team who announced the discovery Wednesday

The planets circle tightly around a dim dwarf star called Trappist-1, barely the size of Jupiter. Three are in the so-called habitable zone, where liquid water and, possibly life, might exist. The others are right on the doorstep.

Scientists said they need to study the atmospheres before determining whether these rocky, terrestrial planets could support some sort of life. But it already shows just how many Earth-size planets could be out there — especially in a star’s sweet spot, ripe for extraterrestrial life.

The takeaway from all this is, “we’ve made a crucial step toward finding if there is life out there,” said the University of Cambridge’s Amaury Triaud, one of the researchers. The potential for more Earth-size planets in our Milky Way galaxy is mind-boggling.

“There are 200 billion stars in our galaxy,” said co-author Emmanuel Jehin of the University of Liege. So do an account. You multiply this by 10, and you have the number of Earth-size planets in the galaxy — which is a lot.”

Last spring, the University of Liege’s Michael Gillon and his team reported finding three planets around Trappist-1. Now the count is up to seven, and Gillon said there could be more. Their latest findings appear in the journal Nature.

This compact solar system is reminiscent of Jupiter and its Galilean moons, according to the researchers.

Picture this: If Trappist-1 were our sun, all seven planets would be inside Mercury’s orbit. Mercury is the innermost planet of our own solar system.

The ultracool star at the heart of this system would shine 200 times dimmer than our sun, a perpetual twilight as we know it. And the star would glow red — maybe salmon-colored, the researchers speculate.

“The spectacle would be beautiful because every now and then, you would see another planet, maybe about as big as twice the moon in the sky, depending on which planet you’re on and which planet you look at,” Triaud said Tuesday in a teleconference with reporters.

The Leiden Observatory’s Ignas Snellen, who was not involved in the study, is excited by the prospect of learning more about what he calls “the seven sisters of planet Earth.” In a companion article in Nature, he said Gillon’s team could have been lucky in nabbing so many terrestrial planets in one stellar swoop.

“But finding seven transiting Earth-sized planets in such a small sample suggests that the solar system with its four (sub-) Earth-sized planets might be nothing out of the ordinary,” Snellen wrote.

Gillon and his team used both ground and space telescopes to identify and track the planets, which they label simply by lowercase letters, “b” through “h.” As is typical in these cases, the letter “A” — in upper case — is reserved for the star. Planets cast shadows on their star as they pass in front of it; that’s how the scientists spotted them.

Tiny, cold stars like Trappist-1 were long shunned by exoplanet-hunters (exoplanets are those outside our solar system). But the Belgian astronomers decided to seek them out, building a telescope in Chile to observe 60 of the closest ultracool dwarf stars. Their Trappist telescope lent its name to this star.

While faint, the Trappist-1 star is close by cosmic standards, allowing astronomers to study the atmospheres of its seven temperate planets. All seven look to be solid like Earth — mostly rocky and possibly icy, too.

They all appear to be tidally locked, which means the same side continually faces the star, just like the same side of our moon always faces us. Life could still exist at these places, the researchers explained.

“Here, if life managed to thrive and releases gases similar to that that we have on Earth, then we will know,” Triaud said.

Chemical analyses should indicate life with perhaps 99 percent confidence, Gillon noted. But he added: “We will never be completely sure” without going there.

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Refugees, host communities in Ethiopia to benefit from €30mln regional development, protection programme

Note: This is another money making strategy for TPLF. Most of the refugees will be Tigreans camouflaging Eritreans
Addis Ababa, February 22, 2017 (Fana Broadcasting Corporate – TPLF website) – The European Union (EU) and the Netherlands, in cooperation with Ethiopia and UN partners and implementing consortia have launched today a 30 million Euro program to address protection and development challenges of both refugees and host communities in the country.

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Time lost means lives lost, warns UN aid chief, releasing funds to tackle drought in Ethiopia

In February 2016, villagers gather at the Ula Arba water point, in Ziway Dugda Woreda, Arsi zone Oromia region, Ethiopia. Photo: OCHA/Charlotte Cans

21 February 2017 (UN News Centre) – The top United Nations humanitarian official today released $18.5 million from the organization’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to enable critical aid for more than 785,000 people suffering from hunger, malnutrition and severe water shortages in Ethiopia’s Somali region – the worst drought-stricken part of the country.

“I was recently in Ethiopia’s Somali region, where I saw the devastating impact this drought is having on people’s lives, livestock and livelihoods,” said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien.

“Time lost means lives lost so I am releasing CERF funding to provide urgent aid to people in need – now – when they need it most.”

According to CERF, the latest allocation will immediately provide affected people with access to water and health, nutritional and agricultural services. The funds will also help pastoral communities, who are most in need, and thousands of whom have been forced to move in search of water and pasture.

This latest drought struck Ethiopia before it could recover from the effects of a devastating El Niño-induced drought in 2015 and 2016 which left millions in urgent need of aid.

However, the grant covers only a small portion of what is required in 2017 to address rising challenges. Furthermore, according to current estimates more than 5.6 million people in the country are in desperate need of basic necessities.

“Humanitarians will use these funds to save lives, but it is a bridge that must be matched and surpassed urgently. Millions of people’s lives, livelihoods and wellbeing depend on continued donor support,” noted Mr. O’Brien.

The drought is also one of the worst to hit the Horn of Africa in decades. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the region received only a quarter of the expected rainfall between October and December last year, leaving over 17 million people in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda in crisis and emergency food insecurity levels.

RELATED: Warning of dire food shortages in Horn of Africa, UN agency calls for urgent action

CERF also highlighted that as the scale and intensity of emergencies around the world continue to increase, the Fund needs to be strengthened so that aid can reach people, whenever and wherever crises hit.

To this end, In December last year, UN General Assembly endorsed a recommendation by then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s to double CERF’s annual target to $1 billion by 2018.

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ONN: Lifetime Achievement Legacy Of Bonnie Holcomb (Qabbanee)

Bekele Gerba and Bonnie Holcomb (Qabbanne) in summer 2015

The Power of Women:”Mala dubartii, humna bishaanii siif haa kennu!” When roughly translated, it is like saying, “May the Almighty Waaqaa/God/Allah/Buddha or whatever Creator you believe in give you the wisdom of a woman and the power of water! ” The three major lessons I have learned from a book – The Mighty and the Almighty, by the United States former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright are:

1. Every religion teaches forgiveness and I forgave my torturers in front of an award winning Catholic Nun, Sister Alice Zachmann, an American intern who was assigned by one of the universities in the United States to work at the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition ( lTASSC) – International and another torture survivor from Ethiopia, Mr. Demissie Abebe, the Executive Director of TASSC during that time.

2. The author quoted Pope John Paul II and her book teaches that all people who struggle with totalitarian regimes like the communist regime of Poland “should never reduce themselves into small controllable units.” Hence, it’s also a great lesson for the Oromo people not to reduce themselves into small controllable units. We need unity in action not only singing “tokkummaa, tokkummaa, tokkummaa, tokkummaa, yaa ilmaan Oromoo tokkummaa!” year in year out.

3. Being inclusive and respecting the rights of other people. We used to have good culture of tolerance to our neighbors before the conquest of Oromia by Menilik II. Moggaasa, Guddifacha and Harma-hodhaa cultural heritages of the Oromo Gadaa System were replaced by totalitarian and autocratic Abyssinian cultures. I personally cherish these cultural heritages and I have tried my best to revamp them.. Furthermore, I have also tried my best to distribute and disseminate both the Afaan Oromo and English versions of the United Nations Universal Declarations of Human Rights to many journalists and human rights advocates so that religious and ethnic minorities living in Oromia get the protection they deserve.

Bonnie Holcomb: OSA’s Board Chair – message regarding the unlawful arrest of Bekele Gerba of OFC

I would like to thank our heroine, Bonnie Holcomb, an Ameeican Anthropologist who was given a Mogasa citizenship by the Oromo pepple and given an Oromo name Qabbanee Waqo, for her lifetime accomplishments in advancing the Oromo cause. We had a very wonderful and memorable moment at the celebration ceremony in honor of her life time endeavor.

From Plenty to Poverty

The organizers did a wonderful job and I would like to appreciate what they have done. We must learn to make balance between the Western cultures and Oromo Safuu and Safeeffannaa. More time should have been given to the leaders of Macha Tulama Association and other Oromo institutions.

I hope that all parties involved refrain from their old and barbaric totalitarian culture of domination and start respecting both domestic and international laws to avoid another crisis in the highly volatile conflict zones of the Horn of Africa such as the Ogden region, the Oromia region, the Sidama region, the Afar region, the Gambella region and so on.

May the Almighty Waaqaa open up the hearts of dictators who always think that their way of thinking is the only way.  By Feyera Sobokssa

Book by Bonnie Holcomb and Sisai Ibasa: The Invention of Ethiopia

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Supporting respect for human rights and encouraging inclusive governance in Ethiopia.

115th CONGRESS

1st Session RES. 128

Supporting respect for human rights and encouraging inclusive governance in Ethiopia.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 15, 2017

Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself, Ms. Bass, Mr. Coffman, Ms. Kelly of Illinois, Mr. Veasey, and Mr. Ellison) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

RESOLUTION

Supporting respect for human rights and encouraging inclusive governance in Ethiopia.

Whereas the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has been an ally of the United States and a partner in the War on Terrorism, as well as a contributor to international peacekeeping;

Whereas the first pillar of the United States Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa, announced in 2012, is to strengthen democratic institutions, and the Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Strategy of the United States Agency for International Development states that “strong democratic institutions, respect for human rights, and participatory, accountable governance are crucial elements for improving people’s lives in a sustainable way”;

Whereas the third pillar of the United States Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa is to advance peace and security, including supporting security sector reform;

Whereas democratic space in Ethiopia has steadily diminished since the general elections of 2005;

Whereas elections were held in 2015 in which the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front party claimed 100 percent of parliamentary seats;

Whereas the 2016 Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Ethiopia cited serious human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests, killings, and torture committed by security forces, restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of association, politically motivated trials, harassment, and intimidation of opposition members and journalists;

Whereas the Ethiopian Human Rights Council reported 102 deaths by April 2016 and Human Rights Watch subsequently reported that the Ethiopian security forces had killed between 500 and 800 peaceful protestors in the Oromia and Amhara regions by November 2016, and the number is likely higher;

Whereas state-sponsored violence against those exercising their rights to peaceful assembly, in Oromia and elsewhere in the country, and the abuse of laws to stifle journalistic freedoms stand in direct contrast to democratic principles and violate the constitution of Ethiopia;

Whereas since protests started in Oromia in 2015, the Ethiopian government has charged more than 150 students, opposition leaders, and activists at the Federal High Court under the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP) and repeatedly has abused such law to limit the freedom of the press, silence independent journalists, and persecute members of the political opposition, including by—

(1) charging 20 university students in March 2016 under the criminal code for protesting in front of the United States Embassy in Addis Ababa, based only on a video of their protest and a list of demands;

(2) arresting Merera Gudina, Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress in December 2016 to be investigated under the ATP after he held meetings with European Union officials in Brussels;

(3) charging Yonatan Tesfaye Regassa, the former head of public relations for the opposition Semayawi Party (the Blue Party), with “planning, preparation, conspiracy, incitement and attempt” of a terrorist act, citing Facebook posts by Regassa about the protests as evidence; and

(4) arresting Getachew Shiferaw (the editor-in-chief of the online newspaper “Negere Ethiopia”), Fikadu Mirkana, (a news editor and reporter with the public “Oromia Radio and TV”), and blogger Zelalem Workagenehu (with an independent diaspora blog) under charges of conspiring to overthrow the government and supporting terrorism under the ATP;

Whereas, on April 25, 2016, the Federal High Court sentenced the former governor of the Gambella region, Okello Akway Ochalla, to nine years imprisonment, and the trial of Ochalla and his co-defendants was marred by violations of fair trial guarantees and included the use of witness testimonies in exchange for non-prosecution under the ATP;

Whereas in August 2015, eighteen Ethiopian Muslim leaders received prison sentences ranging from seven to 22 years in prison for peacefully protesting against government interference in the religious affairs of the Islamic community, some of whom were later pardoned;

Whereas criminal courts in Ethiopia are weak, overburdened, subject to political influence, accept the use of forced confessions, and allow detainees to be held for months without charge;

Whereas serious concerns have been raised regarding prison conditions in Ethiopia, including overcrowding, poor sanitation, lack of access to potable water, excessive use of solitary confinement, the use of rape and torture, withholding access to medical treatment, and denial of access to proper legal counsel or to visitors;

Whereas laws such as the 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation have been used to restrict the operation of civil society organizations in Ethiopia, especially those investigating alleged violations of human rights by governmental authorities;

Whereas in June 2016, the Government of Ethiopia announced that it closed down more than 200 nongovernmental organizations within a nine-month period from 2015 to 2016 for failing to comply with the restrictive provisions of the 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation;

Whereas the development strategy of the Government of Ethiopia has targeted the relocation of more than 1,500,000 people, including indigenous Anuaks in the Gambella region, from their ancestral lands for large-scale land development under the “villagization” program;

Whereas the case of the “Zone 9 Bloggers”, whose arrest, detention, and trials on terrorism charges brought international attention to the restrictions on the freedom of the press in Ethiopia, is indicative of the coercive environment in which Ethiopian journalists operate;

Whereas, on October 9, 2016, the Government of Ethiopia imposed a far-reaching, six-month state of emergency that restricts a broad range of actions, including blocking mobile Internet access and social media communication, undermining freedoms of association, expression, and peaceful assembly, which led to the arrest of over 22,000 persons according to Ethiopian Government accounts, and codifying such tactics as arbitrary detention;

Whereas serious abuses have been and continue to be committed in the Somali regional state by federal and regional security forces, some of which may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity;

Whereas there has been no credible independent investigation into any of the abuses mentioned herein and no indication that anyone has been held to account for these abuses; and

Whereas during President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Addis Ababa in July 2015, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn expressed the commitment of his government to deepen the democratic process and work towards improving governance and respect for human rights, and noted the need to step up efforts to strengthen institutions: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—

(1) condemns—

(A) the killing of peaceful protesters and excessive use of force by Ethiopian security forces;

(B) the arrest and detention of journalists, students, activists, and political leaders who exercise their constitutional rights to freedom of assembly and expression through peaceful protests; and

(C) the abuse of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to stifle political and civil dissent and journalistic freedoms;

(2) urges protesters in Ethiopia to refrain from violence and to refrain from encouragement or acceptance of violence in demonstrations;

(3) urges all armed factions to cease their conflict with the Government of Ethiopia and engage in peaceful negotiations directly and through international intermediaries;

(4) calls on the Government of Ethiopia to—

(A) lift the state of emergency;

(B) end the use of excessive force by security forces;

(C) conduct a full, credible, and transparent investigation into the killings and instances of excessive use of force that took place as a result of protests in the Oromia and Amhara regions and hold security forces accountable for wrongdoing through public proceedings;

(D) release dissidents, activists, and journalists who have been imprisoned, including those arrested for reporting about the protests, for exercising constitutional rights;

(E) respect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and guarantee the freedom of the press and mass media, in keeping with Articles 30 and 29 of the Ethiopian constitution;

(F) engage in open and transparent consultations with citizens regarding its development strategy, especially those strategies that could result in the displacement of people from their land;

(G) allow a rapporteur appointed by the United Nations to conduct an independent examination of the state of human rights in Ethiopia;

(H) address the grievances brought forward by representatives of registered opposition parties;

(I) hold accountable those responsible for killing, torturing, and detaining innocent civilians who exercised their constitutional rights;

(J) repeal proclamations that—

(i) can be used as a political tool to harass or prohibit funding for civil society organizations that investigate human rights violations, engage in peaceful political dissent, or advocate for greater political freedoms;

(ii) prohibit or otherwise limit those displaced from their land from seeking remedy or redress in courts, or do not provide a transparent, accessible means to access justice for those so displaced;

(iii) allow for the arrest and detention of peaceful protesters and political opponents who legally exercise their rights to freedom of expression and association; and

(iv) prohibit or otherwise limit peaceful nonprofit operations in Ethiopia; and

(K) investigate the circumstances surrounding the September 3, 2016, shootings and fire at Qilinto Prison, the deaths of persons in attendance at the annual Irreecha festivities at Lake Hora near Bishoftu on October 2, 2016, and the ongoing killings of civilians over several years in the Somali Regional State by federal and regional police, and publically release a report on such investigations in an expedient manner;

(5) calls on the Secretary of State to conduct a review of security assistance to Ethiopia in light of recent developments and to improve transparency with respect to the purposes of such assistance to the people of Ethiopia;

(6) calls on the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to immediately lead efforts to develop a comprehensive strategy to support improved democracy and governance in Ethiopia;

(7) calls on the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, to improve oversight and accountability of United States assistance to Ethiopia, pursuant to the expectations established in the United States Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa;

(8) calls on the Secretary of State, in cooperation with the Secretary of the Treasury, to apply appropriate sanctions on foreign persons or entities responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against any nationals in Ethiopia as provided for in the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act; and

(9) stands by the people of Ethiopia and supports their peaceful efforts to increase democratic space and to exercise the rights guaranteed by the Ethiopian constitution.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-resolution/128/text

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The torturous fields of Ethiopia’s rehabilitation centre

By Befeqadu Hailu

(Amnesty) — Befeqadu Hailu, a member of the Zone-9 blogging group was arrested for criticizing the State of Emergency Declaration, in an interview he gave to the Voice of America. In this note, he shares what he witnessed during his stay at Awash Sebat Military Training Centre, which was turned into a rehabilitation centre for people arrested during the State of Emergency.

Wakoma Tafa was planning to get married on Sunday 9 October 2016, when the police arrested him just three days before his wedding day in Alem Gena -a town 25kms west of Addis Ababa. On his would-be wedding day, the Police took Wakoma to Awash Sebat Federal Police Training Centre, turned into a ‘rehab centre’ (Tehadiso Maekel) as per the Ethiopia’s State of Emergency.

I met Wakoma after the Command Post (a special unit established to to enforce the state of emergency declaration measures) transferred me to Awash Sebat along with 242 other ‘suspects’ from Addis Ababa. Together, we were over 1000 people.

The day we arrived at the center, we saw many youngsters in worn-out dirty shirts, walking barefoot in two lines. A fellow detainee related that it looked like a scene from the movie series ‘Roots’.

Later, we found out that the police were taking them to the sandy field at the back of the compound for physical exercises every day after breakfast. The exercises included frog-jumping, push-ups, sit-ups and supporting their body for long in a push-up position. The hot ground burnt their palms. The police encouraged those too tired to continue by beating them.

Oromia Police, who were in charge of the interrogations, thrashed, kicked, and punched the detainees during interrogation. The purpose of the interrogations was to find out the level of their participation and to name the others in the protests. During the 33 days of our stay, Wakoma’s nose was bleeding every day since a police officer kicked him during interrogation. Nurses at the centre could not stop his bleeding. However, Wakoma was not the only one tortured during interrogations. Most of the ‘suspects’ who were in Awash Sebat for 40 days before our arrival sustained varying degrees of beating, slapping and kicking.

A new normal

Then, our turn came to be paraded, bare footed, to the open pits within the Centre’s compound. The gravel path was hard to walk on barefoot but the yelling of officers dangling their sticks was enough incentive to run on it. Once we reached the toilet pits, we had to sit side by side and do our business. None of us was willing to do it the first day. Later on, we accepted that it as the new normal.

For breakfast, they gave us half-cup of tea and two loaves of bread. I noticed the youngsters, who were there before us, enjoying the additional loaf of bread. Before our arrival, they had only one during breakfasts.

They spread us into 10 different halls each harboring more than one hundred detainees. Each room has sixteen double-decker beds enough for only thirty-two people; the rest shared mattresses on the floor. The rooms have ventilators but not enough to cool the heat. In addition, there was not enough water –not even to drink. In the 33 days of my stay, I was able to wash only two times.

‘Rehabilitation training’

Befekadu’s Certificate of attendance for the rehabilitation training

On day two of the parading, the Command Post sent a team to start our ‘rehabilitation training’. They also allowed us to wear shoes. Unfortunately, nearly half of the detainees who were there before us had no shoes when they arrived at the Centre 40 days prior to our arrival.

The state of emergency Inquiry Board came and spoke to notable opposition party members such as Abebe Akalu, Eyasped Tesfaye, and Blen Mesfin. They reported the rights violations we were facing in detail.  However, we learnt that the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, the state-broadcaster, reported only logistic problems, entirely leaving out complaints of rights violations.

Most detainees from Addis Ababa, however, complained to the officials that they are victims of personal revenge. Some said people with personal grudges against them tipped their names to the police. Similarly, most detainees from the Oromia regional state maintained they were victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

One of the clips they regularly showed on the screen was the Afaan Oromo song, ‘Madda Seenaa’ by artist Teferi Mekonen. Ironically, Teferi Mekonen was among us. On our “graduation” day, he was invited to perform on the stage. He pleased us all by singing the politically charged Oromifaa song, ‘Maalan Jira’, by the prominent Oromo artist Haacaaluu Hundeessaa. Sadly, Teferi Mekonen is re-arrested immediately after our release from Awash Sebat. I was shocked to see him in a prison here in Addis Ababa when I went to visit my friends, journalists Annania Sori and Elias Gebru.

A day before we left the centre, the police told us we had to wear a t-shirt on which ‘ayidegemim/Irra hin deebiamu’ (never again) is printed in Amharic and Oromifa. None of us hesitated to wear the t-shirts – they were fresh and clean and our souls were desperately looking beyond the centre and to getting back to our homes; we were exhausted and looking forward to resume the life we left.

There were 17 women among the detainees and one of them was pregnant. There were also about 15 underage boys. We were all in it together and we all survived.

I am hoping that the 28 years old Wakoma can re-organize his wedding again.

This blog was originally published on Addis Standard News Paper with the title: Memoirs of my detention at Awash 7: tales of indoctrination, of laughter and the unknown on 30 Dec 2016 (reprinted with modifications with permission of the author)

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Ethiopia Prosecutors Bring Multiple Criminal Charges Against Opposition Leader Dr. Merera Gudina, Two Others

Mahlet Fasil

Addis Abeba, Feb. 23/2017  (Addis Standard) – Ethiopian prosecutors have brought multiple criminal charges against prominent opposition leader Dr. Merera Gudina, Chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC). Criminal charges include an attempt to violently overthrow the constitutional order.

The 19 pages charge constitutes four separate charges, of which Dr. Merera is indicted in charges number one, three and four.

Two other individuals: second defendant Dr.Berhanu Nega, leader of the opposition Patriotic G7, and 3^rd defendant Jawar Mohammed, head of OMN Television and a prominent Oromo activist, are also charged in absentia under the same file as Dr. Merera Gudina. But the two only share details of offenses listed in the first of the four separate charges in the same file.

Accordingly, the first charge against Dr. Merera and the two co-defendants accuses all the three of breaching Ethiopia’s criminal code article 32/1/a & b, article 27/1, and article 238/1& 2 that deals with constitutional order. Accordingly, it accuses them of being leaders and major instigators of the yearlong public protest that rocked Ethiopia prior to the declaration of the current state of emergency in Oct. 2016.  It also details that the trios were involved in “creating pressure against the government” “threatening society through the means of violence” and attempting to “disrupt constitutional order.” Reacting to the news that he was formally charged with terrorism, Jawar Mohammed tweeted: “TPLF has finally put on its honor roll by charging me at its kangaroo court.”

The second charge in the same file is brought against two media institutions: OMN and ESAT, both foreign-based television stations. But besides the criminal charges of contravening articles 32/1/a as well as 38 & 34/1 by attempting to violently overthrow the constitutional order, both institutions are also charged with article 5/1/b of Ethiopia’s infamous Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP) 652/01. The media institutions are accused of fueling the recent protests by serving as a communication tool for terrorist organizations such as Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and Patriotic G7, both outlawed by Ethiopia’s ruling party dominated parliament.

The third and the fourth criminal charges are brought against Dr. Merera only, leaving him to defend three of the four charges in his file name.

The third charge accuses him of violating article 12/1 of the current state of emergency, which made any contact with individuals that the government designated as terrorists a crime. By this, the charge refers to Dr. Merera meeting and discussing with Dr. Berhanu Nega of PG7 during his trip to Europe shortly before his arrest.

And the fourth criminal charge accuses him of contravening article 486/b and giving a false and damaging statement about the government to a media. The charge specifically mentions a radio interview Dr. Merera gave to the VOA, (not mentioned if it was the VOA Amharic or Afaan Oromo), in which Dr. Merera disputed government’s claims that it had foiled a terror plot in Addis Abeba during a world cup qualifier match between Ethiopia and Nigeria in Dec. 2013.

Dr. Merera Gudina was due to appear at the federal high court Arada branch today, but a notice put in the court premise says all court hearings between February 21 and 24 will not take place due to trainings judges and all court staffs are taking. Addis Standard learned that Dr. Merea Gudina will remain at Ma’ekelawi, a notorious prison in the heart of Addis Abeba, until next hearing which is set on March 3^rd.

The charges against Dr. Merera and the two individuals are punishable by up to ten years in jail and do not prohibit the accused from having the right to bail.

Throughout the last three months, the government maintained  Dr. Merera was only detained under the six-month state of emergency.

Dr. Merera was detained upon arrival in Addis Abeba after finishing a tour to several European countries for more than three weeks.

During his tour Dr. Merera delivered a speech to members of the European Union Parliament on current political crisis and human rights violations in Ethiopia. Dr. Merera was joined by two other prominent invitees: Dr. Berhanu Nega, and athlete Feyisa Lilessa, Olympic silver medalist who gave a significant impetus to a year-long Oromo protest that gripped Ethiopia when he crossed his arms in an X sign at the finishing line. (The three are seen in the picture above.)

The latest charges against Dr. Merera show that his party, OFC, is at the forefront of losing its leaders to prison. Currently, several members of the party, including Bekele Gerba and Dejene Fita Geleta, first secretary general and secretary general respectively are facing terrorism charges. Of the 22 defendants in this file, majority are OFC rank and file members.

Bekele Gerba was arrested for the second time since 2011, during which he was sentenced to eight years in prison suspected of allegedly belonging to the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Bekele spent almost four of the eight years before he was freed in April 2015 only to be re-arrested in Nov. 2015 following a wave of protests by the Oromo.

The other notable Oromo opposition figure serving eight years prison term is Olbana Lelisa, who was arrested along with Bekele Gerba in 2011. Olbana was a high-ranking leader of the Oromo People’s Congress Party (OPC), which has since merged with the Oromo Federal Democratic Movement (OFDM) to form OFC, which is led by Dr. Merera.

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ASCL worried about Ethiopian political scientist Dr Merera Gudina

Veteran Ethiopian politician Merera Gudina said election votes were rigged and ballots “stolen”.

(African Studies Centre Leiden) — A Court in Ethiopia has adjourned the case of Dr Merera Gudina on 23 February, allowing the police to investigate him for another 28 days. Dr Merera was arrested on 1 December 2016. The African Studies Centre Leiden is concerned about Merera, who is a political scientist and chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress in Ethiopia, a legal opposition party. Dr Merera has been a visiting scholar to the African Studies Centre Leiden twice and has made major contributions to the understanding of Ethiopian and African political life. He has been a consistent voice for moderation, dialogue and transparent politics.

Dr Merera has been in prison since his arrest. According to a post on Twitter from the Ethiopian Human Rights Project, the Court adjourned the case of Merera Gudina on 23 February 2017, which it also did on 26 January 2017.

Before his arrest Dr Merera had returned from a meeting on 9 November at the European Parliament in Brussels, where he had, upon invitation, briefed EP members on the situation in Ethiopia after the proclamation of the ‘state of emergency’ on 12 October 2016. Although Dr Merera has been in prison (Ma’ekälawi Prison) for nearly three months, no charges have been brought, and the ground given for his arrest was “…trespassing the state of emergency rulings of the country”, an apparent reference to the presence at the same meeting of a leader of the Ginbot-7 movement, a group seen as ‘terrorist’ by the Ethiopian government under its ‘anti-terrorism proclamation’ of 2009. This reason given for Dr Merera’s arrest seems not very convincing, as Dr Merera did not invite these members and did not organize the meeting: that was the European Parliament. Dr Merera cannot be reproached for having to meet and sit at the same table with other guests invited by the European Parliament.

Although we understand Ethiopian government’s concern with security, this arrest of Dr Merera does not fit the picture. It is well known that he and his party OFC have no violent or insurrectionist agenda, and he has always been very open and clear about his position and that of his party. The activities of this party are consistently peaceful and aimed at political dialogue and accommodation.

In prison, Dr Merera has so far neither been allowed to meet friends and relatives nor his lawyers.

The ASCL is concerned about his fate. Detaining him does not match the confidence building measures and efforts ‘to hear the voice of those that may not be represented’ in Ethiopia, a stated aim of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Mr. Hailemariam Dessalegn, e.g., in his talks with visiting German Chancellor A. Merkel on 11 October in Addis Ababa.

We therefore would like to plead for the unconditional release from prison of Dr Merera.

African Studies Centre Leiden

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Ethiopia: Top Oromo activist ‘mocks’ terrorism charges of ‘kangaroo court’

By Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban

(Africanews) — Jawar Mohammed, an influential Oromo activist charged with terrorism by the Ethiopian prosecutor has mocked the charges of treason and terrorism.

He described the ruling Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in a tweet that said, ‘‘TPLF has finally put on its honor roll by charging me at its kangaroo court. The charge is said to include treason and terrorism.’‘

Mohammed, who is the Executive Director of Oromia Media Network, was on Thursday charged along with the leader of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), Dr Merera Gudina and Dr Berhanu Nega – leader of the opposition Patriotic G7.

His charge comes despite being at his base in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the US. All three accused are said to be involved in “creating pressure against the government, threatening society through the means of violence” and attempting to “disrupt constitutional order.”

The Oromia Media Network (OMN) which he heads describes itself as ‘‘an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit news enterprise whose mission is to produce original and citizen-driven reporting on Oromia, the largest and most populous state in Ethiopia.’‘

According to its website, the necessity to establish such an outlet was because of the totalitarian state control over print and electronic media in the country. It says the state’s suppression of independent media continued adversely affect people of Oromo whose population is around 40 million.

Under Ethiopia’s current state of emergency rules, there are some media channels that have been banned by the government. There is restriction on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which are seen as the driving force behind calls for protests which have often been met by heavy security clampdown.

He however sounded a warning to the government in a later tweet that the people of Oromo will soon rise against the ‘‘mercenary paramilitary force.’‘

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