ADDIS ABABA – Muluneh Eyoel, the jailed party secretary of the popular Ethiopian opposition Kinijit, was on a hunger-strike in an Addis Ababa prison cell to protest his solitary confinement.

The 31-year-old Muluneh was brought to Kerchelle on April 9 from Kaliti Prison, where most of the Kinijit leaders are being held on fabricated charges of ‘treason and genocide.’

Muluneh is being held incommunicado as a punitive measure for a) wearing a Kinijit T-shirt b) speaking in his native Kembata language during family visits c) ‘raising his voice’ during a visit by MPs who were trying to find recruits from the jailed opposition and form one amenable to the ruling party.

Since he rigged the May 2005 elections, the tyrant Meles Zenawi faces an angry nation subdued only by means of killings and the detention of hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters.