LONDON – The exiled president of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association (EFJA) and Editor-in-Chief of Lisane Hizib has called on Ethiopians in and out of the country to make more concerted and unified efforts to avert the looming disaster over the very survival of Ethiopia as a nation state.
Addressing a fund raising event in London via a mobile phone from Kampala on Sunday, Kifle Mulat denounced the all out war being waged by Meles Zenawi against vocal critics and members of the opposition in a desperate bid to divert attention from his defeat at the polls. Kifle, who received the prestigious International Press Freedom Fighter Award in 2000 and AI’s Special Award for Human Rights Journalists under Threat in 2004, said the unending harassment, imprisonment, extrajudicial killings and courtroom persecutions had long been subjecting journalists and their families to untold sufferings and hardships.
He underlined that Ethiopian journalists could only ensure their real freedom when the country at large is liberated from the despotic rule of Meles and his cronies who have been committing crimes against humanity with arrogance and impunity and level outrageous charges against other peaceful and decent Ethiopians. Kifle, who was spared imprisonment for the 8th time as he was in Uganda at the height of the November crackdowns to attend a human rights meeting, stated that though Ethiopians should appreciate the efforts of some genuine friends of the people of Ethiopia, they shoulder the primary responsibility of freeing the nation from the tentacles of the Meles regime.
“No external powers have preserved the territorial integrity and independence of the nation, but the unity and sacrifices of the Ethiopian people,” said Kifle, who has been facing trumped up genocide and treason charges along with other prominent patriots. He said the looming national disaster can only be averted when Ethiopians rise up in unison, setting aside their differences, to defend their liberties and fend off the inhuman repressions of the Meles regime, which has resorted back to its backward tactics of banditry and piracy.
A representative of Amnesty International, who preferred to speak anonymously due to his keen interest to travel to Ethiopia to investigate the grave human rights situations, said that Amnesty International would continue to expose the gross human rights violations being committed by one of the most repressive regimes in the world. The representative pointed out that the government has persistently broken its promises and violated its own constitution and international conventions for the protection of human rights since it came to power in 1991. He indicated that journalists have suffered so much in Ethiopia as the regime half-heartedly legalized press freedom but continually violated the rights of those who exercised their inalienable rights to freedom of expression. “In 1998 AI published a special report, Journalists in Prison, Press Freedom under Attack. Eight years later so much of it is still true in Ethiopia.”
He indicated that the proclamation supposed to guarantee freedom of expression had been used to regulate and curtailed press freedom in the wrong way. “It is true there were over 200 newspapers and magazines at one time. But the press law restricted freedom of the press contrary to international standards,” he noted.
According to him, the post-election repressions have posed serious challenges to the nation as prominent human rights defenders, including Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, members of the civil society, journalists, leaders of CUD and elected MPs ended up in jails and faced treason and genocide charges. AI has recognised the detainees as prisoners of conscience and will make utmost efforts to secure their release, he said. Responding to questions raised by a couple of participants about the fairness of the trial, the representative indicated that AI would closely monitor the trial despite a history of unfairness seen at high profile cases such as that of the late Professor Asrat Woldeyes and Dr Taye Woldesemayat.
A participant discounted observation of the fake trial by the international community as a useless exercise as the outcome is a foregone conclusion. He said the police, the supreme judge, the prosecutor, the parliament, the executive even the army, is no one but the dictator Meles Zenawi. He particularly criticized the presiding judge in the mock trial, Ato Adel Ahmed, for being biased and a servile stooge of the ruling party. He expressed his dismay to hear that the judge shouted down Birtukan Medeksa during her last court appearance while she was loudly claiming that she was physically attacked in jail. “What kind of fairness is this?” he asked.
Organised by a group of concerned Ethiopians in London at the Ethiopian Community in Britain (ECB), the gathering raised over £4000 to provide direct financial support to children and families of jailed journalists facing greater hardships. A portrait of the late Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedihin was auctioned and went to the highest bidder for £650.
Wondimu Mekonnen, who chaired and moderated the meeting, announced on the occasion the formation of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Support Group in the UK to coordinate efforts to help jailed journalists and their families as well as press freedom in Ethiopia. Wondimu, who is a longstanding human rights campaigner himself, said the event was a success and would further consolidate the bitter but peaceful struggle to make dictatorship history once and for all in Ethiopia.
The first chairman of EFPJS-UK, Ato Nigussie Gamma, briefed participants on the objectives and plans of the support group. He said that the group would be actively engaged in not only mobilizing support to jailed journalists and their families but also in mapping out strategies to defend and promote freedom of expression in Ethiopia.
Based on cogent presentations in favour of more consolidated efforts to assist journalists under attack and the fight for liberty, attendees of the event have vowed to continue supporting the struggle of the Ethiopian people to throw the yokes dictatorship off their shoulders.
