Which one you first choose? በቅድሚያ የሚፈልጉት

Sunday, February 1, 2015

European Citizens are imprisoned & tortured in Ethiopa

European Citizens are imprisoned & tortured in Ethiopa  

Ø A Norwegain and a British Citizens are in jail since 2014

Ø  A black Canadian is in jail since 2006 while two Swedish (white) journalists freed in 400 days.

Mr. Andargachew Tsege from United Kingdom, was arrested at an airport in Yemen while he was in transit in June 2014 and promptly vanished. Two weeks later it emerged he had been sent to Ethiopia, where he has been imprisoned ever since. This Briton, a prominent opponent of the Ethiopian regime, is facing a death sentence imposed five years ago at a trial held in his absence. He is in a high risk of torture in an unknown prison and in death row.
The Britain government never played a role in the first two weeks of his capture to protect its citizen before Mr. Tsege was extradited to Ethiopia. Yemen knowingly and intentionally violated the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by rendering Mr.Tsege to the regime in Ethiopia without informing the British embassy and consular office in Sanaa. Under the Convention against Torture, which Yemen ratified in 1991, a government may not “expel, return (‘refouler’) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
Diplomats noted that neither Yemen nor Ethiopia informed Britain about the rendition of its citizen. From the very date, pro-democratic protesters are leading the campaign “Free Andargachew Tsege” all over the world. Recently the Daily mail newspaper reports “UK diplomats clash over Briton on death row in Ethiopia: Officials’ fury after Foreign Secretary claims he couldn’t ‘find time’ to help father-of-three facing execution”


Mr Andargachew Tsege, 59, was living in UK since 1979, the time he came from Ethiopia as a political refugee. He is a founder and Secretary General of Ginbot 7, a banned movement in Ethiopia, but favored by the majority of Ethiopians in diaspora. It is popular because the mission of Ginbot 7 movment is to establish “a national political system in which government power and political authority in Ethiopia is assumed through peaceful and democratic process based on the free will and choice of the people.”
Tsege’s family and lawyers insist that he is a peaceful man trying to stand up against an authoritarian regime. The family of a north London man who is facing the death penalty in Ethiopia has said the government should be doing more to help get him home.
The reluctance on the British side isn’t the first case. Mr. Okello Akuay, who has a Norwegian citizenship was arrested in South Sudan and extradited to Ethiopia last year. There is no information if the Norwegian government has said anything at all. He was a president of Gambella region of west Ethiopia, he is also known for defecting the regime and became Norwegian a decade ago. Mr. Bashir Makhtal, an Ogadeni businessman who has a Canadian citizen and Oromo Refugee such as Tesfahun Chemeda were arrested by Kenyan security and sent to Ethiopia in 2006. The latter died on August 2013 from injuries sustained during years of torture.

These are just few of the high profile cases of Ethiopian origin Western citizens. Two Swedish journalists Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson freed from a prison in Ethiopia after serving more than 400 days of an 11-year sentence. The journalists were accused on ‘terrorism” charges captured on June 2011. They, “would have been released months earlier if the Swedish foreign ministry and Human Rights Watch hadn’t kept making loud public noises about ill treatment and human rights abuse. By 2014, according to CPJ, more than 60 journalists are imprisoned or fled under the pretext of anti-terror law that is manipulated wrongly in Ethiopia to avoid pro-democracy activists.
 What has the British Government done to secure the rights or release of one of its second class citizens abused by thugs in Ethiopia? Diplomats urged “We do not believe that the Government of the UK has done all that it could have done and should have done. The measures taken so far or are being taken were not prompt and speedy.”  What makes the arrest of Mr. Tsege unique is that he is being held incommunicado cut off completely from family and friends. The name of the prison is secret for the last 6 months and still the time of writing this article.

The Abduction of the Briton Andargachew Tsigie from Asian Country/Yemen to African/Ethiopia has ignited a fury among exiled Ethiopians, who are still living under a refugee status and those who have taken citizenship of other countries. This is dangerous trend and must be confronted. If sufficient pressure is not mounted, diaspora based activists and even regular people might be at risk of been whisked away any time they visited an African, Arab, Asian or even some Western countries.


Therefore

  •        The Western countries should stand up for people they granted citizenship and refugee status.The Briton Mr.Tsege, the Norwegian Mr.Akuay and others should be released and join their families in Europe. Europeans must use their leverage to pressure these neighboring countries to refrain from illegal rendition.

  •     The neighboring countries to a dictator government in Africa such as Ethiopia should protect those who seek refuge within their border and refrain from detaining and rendering people to Ethiopia. Respect international conventions!

  •        The international community, nations, and aid agencies by large should stop financial donations to the blood-tainted hands of the Ethiopian regime, and desist from the unethical practice of doing business with the authoritarian regime of Ethiopia. Rather say enough with the brutal rule of the Ethiopian regime TPLF.

Written by Abraham Zerihun, blogger at www.zethiopiains.blogspot.com
                    


No comments:

Post a Comment

wanted officials