‘Very outrageous, Yonatan could face 20 years in prison just for a Facebook post, no one will believe this,’‘ this is the view of an Ethiopian activist Eyasped Tesfaye.
He was reacting to the impending sentencing of a former political colleague, Yonatan Tesfaye, who was on Monday found guilty of terrorism for Facebook posts he made in 2015.
Eyasped while insisting that Yonatan was not a terrorist also said the current trend showed that there was no freedom of speech in Ethiopia. His view is similar to one expressed by lead counsel for Yonatan. Sentencing is due on May 22 this year.
He is not a terrorist, he is just an activist, he was a chair in the Blue party after he left the blue party he was just an activist. He writes different things on Facebook and according to that he may face 10 to 20 years in prison.
‘‘He is not a terrorist, he is just an activist, he was a chair in the Blue party after he left the blue party he was just an activist. He writes different things on Facebook and according to that he may face 10 to 20 years in prison,’‘ Eyasped toldRFIin an interview.
Yonatan Tesfaye, a former spokesperson for the Blue party, was arrested in December 2015 after his facebook posts were judged by the authorities to have helped ignite the Oromo protests which hit the country.
After his arrest, he was held incommunicado during the pre-trial period that spanned some five months. Eventually, in May 2016, he was charged with terrorism under the country’s anti-terrorism proclamation (ATP).
Other prominent Ethiopian activists took to social media to decry the court ruling amongst them Jawar Mohamed of the Oromo Media Network – who is facing terrorism charges himself and Tsedale Lemma Editor-in-chief of the popular and respected Addis Standard news portal. Read more here
Three different flags flutter in the breeze along the road that runs through Moyale in southern Ethiopia. The first is green, yellow and red: the colours of the Ethiopian federal state. Then, on the side of the road: red, black and white, with a tree in the centre, the colours of the Oromo. And a third: the green, white and red, with a camel in one corner, of Somali state.
Moyale, deep in Ethiopia’s dusty south-eastern drylands and straddling the border with Kenya, is split sharply down the middle. The fresh tarmac of the road that divides it marks the long-contested frontier between Oromia and Somali regional states.
These flags fly side-by-side in Moyale as a testament to the success of Ethiopia’s distinct model of ethnically based federalism, established in 1994.
But it is also a measure of its failings: Moyale has two separate administrations; segregated schools; parallel court systems; rivalrous police forces, and adversarial local militia. More than 20 years after ethnic federalism was introduced, tensions between the two sides – Borana Oromo and Garri Somalis – are as fraught as ever.
“There is a serious problem emerging,” said Ibrahim, an elderly Somali man in the courtyard of a hotel on the Oromo side of the road. As a clan elder, he has freedom to sit in places that younger Garri men would avoid, he said. Ill feeling between the two communities stretches back decades, but recent events have reopened old wounds.
A clash between two armed groups near Moyale in April resulted in tit-for-tat killings, with at least one Garri and one Borana reported dead (both groups claim more), and injuries on either side. Locals reported similar deadly flare-ups early this year.
Memory of this has helped to maintain the peace since, and a community accord struck between clan elders has kept the younger generation in check. But with the latest outbreak of what he calls “revenge killings”, Ibrahim said he was worried that the accord could be broken.
Ethnic tensions here are part of a wider confrontation that stretches all along the border from Moyale in the south to Dire Dawa, some 1,000km (620 miles) north. Ethiopia’s government, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), imposed a state-of-emergency in October following widespread protests against the regime in Addis Ababa, the capital, which resulted in at least 669 deaths.
Members of the Oromo community gather in Bishoftu, Oromia, in October 2016, as a series of protests erupted in the capital, Addis Ababa. Photograph: Zacharias Abubeker/AFP/Getty Images
But while stability returned to the rest of the country in the following months, the Somali-Oromo regional border saw an outburst of violence on a scale that many said was unprecedented. According to residents in Oromo districts along there, violent incursions by Somali militia began in December and continued sporadically over the next three months. Human Rights Watch, which received reports of dozens of casualties, said these clashes were of a different order to the pastoralist struggles over water points and farmland that have long afflicted the region in times of drought.
Instead, the clashes involved heavily armed men on both sides in locations all along the border. Schools were looted and civil servants shot in their offices, said Fekadu Adugna, an academic at Addis Ababa University, who specialises in Oromo-Somali relations.
Residents on the Oromo side also reported widespread rapes and said they had found ID cards belonging to members of the controversial Somali special police, know as the “Liyu”, among the remains of the dead. The worst of the violence took place in the area around Negele, another frontier town about 500km from Moyale.
There has been no official investigation into the events and there are no exact figures for the numbers killed. According to Ibrahim Adam, a conflict-resolution field officer for Igad, an east African regional bloc, more than 100 people died and thousands were displaced in February and March in the Negele area alone. Oromo activists have claimed much higher numbers.
Few now dare take the road from Moyale to Negele, which runs through both Garri and Borona districts. Residents of Moyale claim that young men at roadblocks have been threatening travellers from a different ethnic group.
An indication of the scale of the conflict came in March when the prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, referred to it in a speech to parliament. For the first time, it was framed not as a dispute over resources but as a battle between two regional militias and police forces. “The problems have no relation to ethnic conflicts,” Desalegn said. “It is our lower political leadership that commands these actions.”
This surprisingly candid explanation tallies with those given by Moyale residents, who see the conflict as one waged by local officials with expansionist agendas. Both regional governments have claimed contested territories in the past couple of years. “This is no longer just between two communities but between two governments,” said Fugicha, a Borana. “It serves their interests.”
Camel herders collect water for their animals at one of the few watering holes left in the drought-affected region near Moyale on the Ethiopian border. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP
Last month, the federal government stepped in to administer a peace agreement between the two sides. It promises to enforce the border that was demarcated following a referendum in 2004, and settle the status of Moyale, which was excluded from that referendum because its ethnic politics were deemed too complex.
Moyale’s Oromo, in particular, have expressed concern about the outcome of the peace agreement. Rumours of a second referendum, and Somali encroachment in a town regarded as historically Oromo, were behind last month’s revenge killings, they said.
Somalis, on the other hand, have pointed to the assertiveness of the new Oromo regional government that came to power in the wake of last year’s protests. It recently issued an extensive list of claims on Addis Ababa, which activists regard as rightfully Oromo too. “The Oromo have never accepted the division of Moyale,” said Ibrahim, the clan elder.
Both sides are pessimistic. One widespread theory is that the federal government’s failure to step in early to end the violence was politically motivated. “People here think the TPLF [the Tigrayan ethnically based political party] initiated this to weaken Oromo resistance to the central government,” said Fugicha. Others have suggested that flashes of ethnic violence suit a regime that defends its heavy-handedness as necessary to prevent the country unravelling.
Whatever the truth, the wider problem is more intractable. Ethiopia’s ethnic-federal model has helped ensure the recognition of minority groups – and kept the peace, many say – but it has also aggravated regional tensions by binding once-fluid ethnic identity to administrative control over territory.
“Federalism brought this problem,” said Adam, the Igad officer. “People now think no one else can live in their area.” Read more here
Ethiopian opposition politician Yonatan Tesfaye has been found guilty of encouraging terrorism for comments he made on Facebook.
He was arrested in December 2015 as a wave of anti-government protests in the Oromia region was gathering momentum.
The authorities objected to several posts including one in which he said the government used "force against the people instead of peaceful discussion".
Ethiopia has been criticised for using anti-terror laws to silence dissent.
Amnesty International described the charges as "trumped up", when they were confirmed in May 2016.
A section of Ethiopia's anti-terror law says that anyone who makes a statement that could be seen as encouraging people to commit an act of terror can be prosecuted.
In a translation of the charge sheet by the Ethiopian Human Rights Project that details the Facebook comments, Mr Yonatan allegedly said: "I am telling you to destroy [the ruling party's] oppressive materials... Now is the time to make our killers lame."
Mr Yonatan, who was a spokesperson for the opposition Blue Party, is due to be sentenced later this month and faces up to 20 years' imprisonment.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionProtesters from Oromia and Amhara have been complaining about political and economic marginalisation
The government faced unprecedented protests from November 2015 as people in the Oromia region complained of political and economic marginalisation.
The protests also spread to other parts of the country.
More than 600 people died in clashes between security forces and the demonstrators as the authorities tried to deal with the unrest, according to the state-affiliated Human Rights Commission.
The government introduced a state of emergency last October to bring the situation under control.
Opposition leader Merera Gudina was arrested last December for criticising the state of emergency and he is still being held. Read more here
Eight Ethiopians have been charged on suspicion with leaking secret political and economic information to leaders of terror groups, according to report by the Ethiopia state-affiliated media outlet — Radio, Fana in Addis Ababa on Monday. The report says the eight will stand trial in Ethiopian Federal High Court, charged with leaking information they gathered while attending government meetings in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa and Oromia regional state.
The charge sheets state that the defendants used email and telephone calls to leak security and classified information on meetings they attended during a six-year period from 2010 to 2016. They were also alleged to have provided list of journalists and government officials for the groups to take action against them. The report, however, did not mention any specific terror groups the individuals were allegedly associating with.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/05/8-ethiopians-charged-leaking-information-terrorist-groups/
In this photo taken Tuesday, May 9, 2017, Teddy Afro, the controversial singer whose album “Ethiopia” is topping the Billboard world chart, poses for a portrait during an interview at his home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Known for the political statements he makes in his music, an infectious mix of reggae and Ethiopian pop, Afro, 40, whose birth name is Tewodros Kassahun, told The Associated Press that raising political issues should not be a sin. (Mulugeta Ayene/Associated Press)
By Elias Meseret | APMay 13
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Teddy Afro, Ethiopia’s superstar singer, is topping the Billboard world albums chart with “Ethiopia,” which less than two weeks after its release has sold nearly 600,000 copies, a feat no other artist here has achieved.
Known for the political statements he makes in his music, an infectious mix of reggae and Ethiopian pop, the 40-year-old Tewodros Kassahun told The Associated Press that raising political issues should not be a sin.
Open debate “should be encouraged,” he said. “No one can be outside the influence of politics and political decisions.”
Ethiopia is an unlikely place for an outspoken singer to thrive. The government is accused of being heavy-handed on opposing voices.
During a visit this month, U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein expressed concern about the state of emergency imposed in October after months of deadly anti-government protests demanding wider freedoms. Opposition and human rights groups blame security forces for hundreds of deaths, but the government says they largely used “proportionate” measures.
The human rights chief also criticized Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism laws, saying an “excessively broad” definition of terrorism may be misused against journalists and opposition members.
In “Ethiopia,” the songs highlight the diversity of the country’s 100 million people while encouraging national unity. Pointing to Ethiopia’s formative role in launching the African Union continental body in 1963, Teddy said his country should find more cohesiveness at home.
“A country that tried to bring Africans together is now unable to have a unified force and voice,” he said. “The tendency nowadays here in Ethiopia is to mobilize in ethnic lines, not ideas.”
In his new album, Teddy sings mainly in Amharic but incorporates other local languages, which has been well-received by Ethiopians as a call for national unity.
At the same time, some of his songs have been interpreted as carrying political messages against Ethiopia’s ruling elites, leading some fans to say his outspokenness has made him a target.
In 2008, the singer was sentenced to two years in prison for a hit-and-run manslaughter but was released after 18 months in jail. He said he was never inside the car, and his fans suggested it was a politically motivated harassment by the ruling party. Hundreds of Ethiopians protested outside the court during his trial in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Authorities also have frequently cancelled his concerts without explanation. “We have sustained a lot of damages. This is not right,” he said.
Asked if he has any political ambitions, the singer said: “Let me continue doing what I’m doing now and we will see what the future holds for other things.”
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Read more here
Ethiopia Today bringing you recent information about Ethiopia. It bring you, news, Amharic movies, Musics and many clips. subscribe and get many Videos on time
