STOCKHOLM – Ethiopians living in Sweden were on Friday joined by supporters of the Swedish Social Democratic Party in their demand for a political change in Ethiopia.
They called for democracy, justice and unity for Ethiopia, and demanded the immediate release of Birtukan Mideksa and all other political prisoners in Ethiopia. LO’s Chairman Wanja Lundby-Wedin (i.e the Swedish Labour Union Chairman\Who currently is chair of the European Labour Union) in her speech uneqiuvically expressed her anger towards the Ethiopian government and demanded the release of UDJ’s chairperson Birtukan Mideksa. In the presence of more than 13,000 Demonstraters, she promised that she will do everything in her power
to secure Birtukan’s release.
Those of us at ASSGr together with other pro-democracy Ethiopian groups have been struggling for a long time for political changes in Ethiopia. As a result, many Swedish politicians of different persuasions have now started to support us, but also have even gone beyond supporting us and have directly engaged themselves in the fight for bringing Democracy, Justice, and Unity.
The recent move of the biggest Swedish Political Party in establishing a special group called Free Birtukan Mideksa is one of the vivid examples that needs to be mentioned. It’s also worth mentioning in this context that Mrs. Carina Hägg, who is a high official of the Social Democrat Party and an MP, recently was in Ethiopia to demand the release of Birtukan. As you can read it from EthiopiaZare, she her self has experienced the authoritarian nature of the Meles regime, since , let alone getting a decent reception, but she even was not allowed to visit Birtukan regardless of all the effort she made.
http://www.ethiopiazare.com/the-news/1-latest-news/785-carina-hagg
In addition to that here is another proof how the Swedish Social democrats are getting engaged in our cause: http://www.cudp.se/Free-the-heroine-Birtukan-Mideksa[1].pdf
For your information, the Swedish Democrat high officials have been, specially recently, repeatedly demanding the Swedish Government (which currently is lead by the Moderat Party) to put pressure on the Meles’s government to respect human right, to be governed by law, to respect the unreserved freedom of speech, freedom to organise, etc.
Last but not least, the Liberal Party (i.e Folk Party) and the Left Party (Vänster Party) high officials, have also been behind us for long time in our fight to bring Democracy, Justice, and Unity. So in short, the fight for change has started to pay off, and we must keep up the struggle until our people are freed from the brutal rule of Meles regime.
