BBC - Ethiopia's imprisoned bloggers have not been forgotten

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In April 2014 BBC Trending covered the arrest of six bloggers and three journalists in Ethiopia. The bloggers are part of a group known as Zone 9, and are well known for campaigning around censorship and human rights issues in Ethiopia. Ten months on from their arrest, the hashtag #Free Zone9 Bloggers continues to be used in the country as the trials continue.

That's not typical - campaigning hashtags often tail off over time. This one is being kept alive by activists both inside and out of Ethiopia who are challenging the government's decision. The total number of tweets is still only in the tens of thousands, but that is enough to be noticed on the global map (Twitter does not produce an official trending topics list for Ethiopia).

Why are they so focused on social media? It certainly isn't the best way to reach the Ethiopian people: the internet is estimated to reach just over 1% of the population there. But it does allow them to network with the global blogging fraternity and the international media. Recently a blog began in support of the nine prisoners, and to report on the hearings. A campaign video has also been released in which complaints are raised over the conditions of Kalinto prison and Kality prison, where the bloggers are being held.

These complaints include torture, unlawful interrogation tactics and poor living conditions. The Ethiopian Embassy in London told BBC Trending that allegations of torture and unlawful interrogation tactics are unfounded, and that they have taken a series of measures "in collaboration with stakeholders, including civil society, to improve the conditions of prisons". They say the nine individuals are charged with "undermining the constitutional order, inciting violence and advocating the use of force to overthrow the legitimate government." They are also accused of working with an organisation proscribed by the Ethiopian Parliament as a terrorist organisation. However, activists in support of the group maintain that Zone 9's actions were constitutional.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-31552883

Zone9 Bloggers case, Presented to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

Six Zone9bloggers collective members and three other independent journalists are in detention since last April 2014.  accusation of Ethiopian government which suspected them in working with human rights organizations was changed to terrorism after 23 days of interrogation. after three months on interrogation detention , all of them including one more blogger in absentia  were charged of terrorism at the end of July 2014.  the case is still on its Pre- trial stage which was more focused on the format and the substance of the charges.  with in  the last nine months they were taken to court nineteen times and their constitutionally given rights has been continuously violated since their arrest.

EHRP  and Freedom Now ( DC based Human Rights advocacy organization)  takes the case to the united nation working group on arbitrary detention. this petition against the Ethiopian Government was presented to the working group on January 26th , 2015.  the petition shows the rights violations they have faced during detention and legal analysis why their arrest was arbitrary.

Ethiopia: Trafficking Beyond Borders

December 30, 2014

by Lulama Moyo

Human trafficking is a huge issue that plagues Ethiopian communities. But trafficking beyond the country’s borders has added more complexity to this issue. Many women, men, and children from Ethiopia have been subjected to forced labor and exploitation of all kinds. They are taken from Ethiopia and are brought to countries mainly in the Middle East as well as countries like Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. Countries in the Middle East have have been found to have a large percent of Ethiopian females enslaved there. According the research thesis by Elias Ashene called, “Trafficking of Ethiopian Women and Girls to the Middle East”, there is early evidence of illegal movement of Ethiopian women. Ashene has found that that between 1996 and 1998 there were 2,247 legal immigrants from Ethiopia in Middle Eastern countries. But by 1999 there were 17,000 Ethiopians found in Lebanon alone and by 2003 there were 25,000. Ashene concludes that this large increase in numbers is due to illegal means. As human trafficking and modern slavery in Ethiopia grow in impact, so does the Ethiopian governments denial. According to an article in the Ethiopian Press Herald entitled, “Ethiopian Human Trafficking Victims Predicament”, the government would rather claim that all movement of Ethiopian people to the Middle East is voluntary even with the evidence that it isn’t.

The main reason Ethiopian women have been lured into domestic slave jobs is by looking for better jobs under false pretenses. There is a frequent circuit of trafficking through the Ethio-Sudan border. Women are continually misled by promise of legitimate housekeeping jobs with wealth Sudanese businessmen. A woman who returned from being trafficked in Dubai revealed that she knew of women who were forced to work in Sudan after being told they were in transit to Bahrain (IOM, Endeshaw). The route that traffickers bring people from Ethiopia is through the Sinai Desert. Many of the trafficked women are taken to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Narrative from an interviewed woman who barely escaped death from trafficking is quoted saying this about her experience:

“When I left my village, I was confident I would reach Khartoum safe and find a very good job…I was thinking just how hard I would work and help my poor parents who were in problem to cover their basic expenses. I was dreaming about the successful and joyful life I expected in my new country.”

“They said ‘take off your coloth!…I said ‘No – so they beat me up severely and forced me to have sex with them.”

“When he asked me: give me the money in your pocket? I said no…So he beat me on my face with iron pipe and dragged me away. I don’t know what then happened. When I opened my eyes I found myself in a hospital taking a medical treatment. And the doctor told me that I was even stapped with knife.”

- Workie Endalkachew narrating for Betre Yacob’s article, “A Shocking Tragedy Behind Human Trafficking in Ethiopia: One Woman’s Horrific Story”.

Workie’s words illustrate the gruesome reality that many trafficked people face. As I have found more information on cross-border human trafficking, I learn that migration plays a huge role. Besides people choosing to leave Ethiopia to seek better opportunities, many are forced to do this as refugees and forced migrants. As Ethiopians journey to different countries with the hopes of starting a new life they are taken for ransom and/or trafficked. An example of this is the migration of Ethiopian to Saudi Arabia via Yemen. Ethiopians are smuggled by small boats to Yemen where they believe they will continue their journey to Saudi Arabia. But as revealed in Human Trafficking of Ethiopians to Yemen, smugglers often turn on Ethiopian travelers and rob them of their money. If they don’t have money they are held for ransom. If their families are unable to pay the ransom they are taken to torture camps where they are beaten, raped, blinded, and often murdered. Because of the tremendously high corruption, lack of solid government, and large rate of gangs, trafficking is easily done in Yemen. Accounts from young girls that are featured in the YouTube clip reveal that Yemeni military are responsible for some of the trafficking that goes on. The military sold women to gangs, rapists, and torture camps, and sometimes raped women themselves.

The human trafficking of Ethiopians to different countries is a devastating realty. It adds a different dimension of how to understand trafficking in the country. Because people leave Ethiopia under so many different circumstances it’s hard to develop statistics and create data of the trafficking. Having found out that Ethiopia’s government has little to no policies about trafficking, I am frustrated. It’s vital that they acknowledge how much human trafficking, kidnapping, and slavery is ravaging their communities. If policies end up being created it will be important for the government to not one consider the issues that are going on in Ethiopia, but they will need to consider the cross-border trafficking. In this post I have uncovered what it means for Ethiopians to be trafficked in different countries. You will receive a more in-depth look at the experiences of children and women that are trafficked from my blog-mates.

ECADF

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Female Ethiopian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia being murdered, raped

ESAT News  November 26, 2013

The situation in Riyadh is hopeless say Ethiopians residing in Saudi Arabia that ESAT spoke to. An Ethiopian, who resides in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said to ESAT that she has witnessed the killing of two Ethiopian women in a place called Mekreyement, Shababiya by Saudi military vehicles. Another Ethiopian lady on her part said that another lady had died hit by an iron while talking to Saudi soldiers. The hand of another Ethiopian lady has been severed. Other Ethiopians have said that there are so many atrocities that are even worse than this.

Over 50 vehicles have been parked for the past 17 days carrying Ethiopians that are waiting to be repatriated voluntarily. The passengers dine and carry out their sanitation around the buses hence polluting the area.  Children are being infected by contagious diseases, according to eyewitnesses.

This crisis has also affected documented Ethiopians living in Saudi Arabia. They say they are finding it very difficult to be employed although they have all the necessary legal requirements fulfilled.

Although unverified, the Ethiopian government has claimed that it has repatriated over 20,000 Ethiopians and the number Ethiopians still concentrated in Menfah Camp in Riyadh is overfull.

http://www.ethiofreedom.com/ethiopian-migrants-victimized-in-saudi-arabia-graham-peebles/

source : EthioFreedom

Urgent Action Needed (አሁንም የድረሱልን ጥሪ ከሳዑዲ አረቢያ)

Wounded in Addis, finished off in Riyadh

From China to Ethiopia and from Belarus to Saudi Arabia, there is no shortage of repressive regimes in the world. In general, repressive societies are defined as exerting pervasive state control over daily life, banning free speech and political opposition, and practicing severe human rights violations. All of these attributes describe the Ethiopian regime from head to toe, but the TPLF regime in Ethiopia has many more attributes that makes it the worst of the worst. Oppressive regimes don not hate their country, yet the Ethiopian regime does. Even though oppressive regimes kill their citizens for a variety of reasons, they don’t kill out of hatred. The TPLF regime in Ethiopia hunts and kills people that it really hates. Almost all countries of the world, authoritarian or egalitarian, show the utmost concern and respect for their citizens who immigrate to other countries. Ethiopia is visibly different; it is really different, so much so, that the Ethiopian embassies throughout the world (including Saudi) are happily opened for certain kind of people and are inhospitable and closed for everybody else.

In recent years, the oil rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia with its growing economy has been a magnet for migrant workers from Ethiopia and other poor countries of Africa and Asia. Although Ethiopian migrant workers have constantly been harassed, abused and treated like a plug horse by their Saudi employers and the police, many young Ethiopians who have been denied opportunities in their native country, have considered Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Arab states as much better and attractive destinations for hope and better life.

The Ethiopian regime which has a fiduciary responsibility of creating domestic employment has in fact facilitated the migration of young Ethiopians to Saudi and other Gulf States, and its corrupted officials have benefited from this immoral act of “legal human trafficking”. This total neglect of Ethiopians by their own government on one side, and the abundant supply of cheap Ethiopian labor on the other, has encouraged some savage Saudis into believing that they either own or have full control over the migrant workers who work and live with them. As a result, domestic employers, local gangs and the youth mob have assaulted, abused, gang raped, mutilated and even killed helpless Ethiopian migrant workers.
When the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him) saw the persecution to which his followers were subjected to in Mecca, he told them to find safe haven in Ethiopia (aka Abyssinia at the time). His followers trusted their trustworthy leader, and they fled to Ethiopia where they enjoyed the unmatched hospitality of the Ethiopian people. The year was 615 AD, It was the First Hijra (migration); and Ethiopia was its destination. As he would never forget the hospitality and generosity of the Ethiopians, the Prophet Mohammed said: “Abyssinia is a land of justice in which no one is oppressed”
Well, today, 1398 years after the First Hijra, two things have changed dramatically. Ethiopia, hailed as the land of justice by the Prophet, is now the symbol of brutality in Africa. And on the other side, Saudi Arabia, the very land of the Prophet and the Holy Land of Islam, has become the land of acute brutality. Ironically, the victims of this brutality are none than the very people that extended their warm hands to the very first migrants of Islam. In the year 615 AD and thereafter, the people and government of Ethiopia showed their utmost hospitality and love towards the first immigrants of Islam. Today, one of the most repressive and brute regimes in the world, the Saudi regime, is returning the favor with absurdity, brutality, and outright inanity.

I hope the Saudi government understands that there is a fine line between tightening its immigration policy and ill-treating and killing immigrants – I only hope because as brute and as injudicious as the Saudi government is, it is never right and it has never been right on anything related to justice, freedom, and human right. Did I say human rights? Oh! Yes, and it does not get more tangled or meshed than this. The Saudi government is known for its sever human rights violations, and Ethiopia is no better if it is not worse. Many young Ethiopians leave their home land and head to Saudi for two main reasons: employment discrimination and lack of opportunity, and lack of freedom and sever human rights violations at home. In Saudi, well; yes Ethiopians are employed in Saudi, but the assault, the abuse and the torture follows them.
The other very strange and undesirable similarity between Ethiopia and Saudi is that, in a very ironic move, these two repressive regimes and three other countries (Russia, China, and Cuba) with questionable human rights records recently secured seats on none other than the UN Human Rights Council. It’s sad, rather absurd that the Saudi and the Ethiopian governments that torture and kill their own citizens are elected to oversee human rights violations elsewhere in the world.
Obviously, from what has been said, the two oppressive regimes, Ethiopia & Saudi, seem to be complementing each other in abusing Ethiopians. Yes, indeed, these two oppressive regimes are as close as ‘lips and teeth’ where one causes the pain and the other finishes off the patient. I personally applaud the current international effort in support of our people in Saudi, but until we tackle the root cause of the problem, the teamwork of Addis and Riyadh continue, and so does the suffering of our people. Therefore, It is crucially important that we start slashing the lip and sending the teeth into the cold.
Saudi Arabia sees Ethiopia as its bread basket for the future, and the ever gluttonous and cash thirty TPLF regime wants to exploit this need by granting the Saudis a massive amount of cheap & fertile land. Hence the leadership in Riyadh harbors no illusion that it is truly interested in the survival of the TPLF regime so long as Addis can keep its promise of supplying cheap labor and land.
In this dominant-submissive relationship, the Saudis take their own self-interest more seriously and do what they want without worrying about Ethiopia. Swallowing its own feelings and avoiding standing-up for the interest of the Ethiopian people, the bigoted and subservient TPLF regime regards Saudi’s needs as paramount. Hence, Ethiopians go to Saudi as domestic workers where they are assaulted, abused and killed; and the Saudis come to Ethiopia as entrepreneurs and get all the respect they may not be getting in their own country.
What we saw in Riyadh and Addis in the last week or two is the reflection of this dominant-submissive relationship. In Riyadh and many other Saudi cities, Ethiopians who protested against the abusive actions of the Saudi regime were arrested, beaten and killed. In Addis, Ethiopians who tried to protest in front of the Saudi embassy were rounded up by the Ethiopian police and beaten like dogs. As long as this dominant-submissive relationship exists, when we talk about Ethiopia and Saudi, as the political satirist Abe Tokichaw would say; it may be very important to make a distinction between Saudi Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia.
In the last two weeks, I watched hours of gruesome and excruciating video clips from Saudi that made me sick to my bones. The street crackdown, the house to house arrest and beating, the rape, the mutilation and the killings have made me ask . . . is Saudi the Holy Land or the land of brutality?
Ethiopia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have become the world of mean streets, where bloody killers are operating with the “immortal certainty” that they will never have to pay for the snuffling out of human life. We must make them pay, and we must stop the team work of this brute and savage duo. There are the Ethiopian people, there is the opposition and there are the damn TPLF gangs. We must get rid of the damn gangs!

by Ephrem Madebo

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