Ethiopia transfers editor Woubshet Taye to remote prison (CPJ)

New York, April 22, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists protests Ethiopian authorities’ transfer of independent newspaper editor Woubshet Taye to a remote prison several hours away from his family’s home. Woubshet has been imprisoned since June 2011 on vague terrorism charges that CPJ has determined to be unsubstantiated.

Woubshet Taye

“Moving detainees to prisons far from their families is a tactic long used by governments that wish to not only further penalize the individuals but to punish their loved ones as well,” said CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita. “Woubshet Taye should not be in prison at all, never mind held in one so far from his family. We call on Ethiopian authorities to return him to a facility closer to his home, and to reconsider the unjust conviction that put him behind bars in the first place.”

Authorities on Friday transferred Woubshet from Kilinto Prison, outside Addis Ababa, to a detention facility in the town of Ziway, about 83 miles southeast of the capital, according to local journalists and the U.S.-based exile-runAwrambaTimes.com. The authorities did not provide a reason for the transfer. Local journalists told CPJ that Woubshet’s wife and four-year-old son would now have to travel more than four hours to reach the prison to visit the journalist.

Woubshet, former deputy editor of the now-defunct independent weekly Awramba Times and a recipient of Human Rights Watch’s Hellman/Hammett Award, was sentenced in January 2012 to a 14-year prison sentence on charges lodged under Ethiopia’s broad anti-terrorism law. The journalist was arrested a couple of weeks after he published a column in Awramba Times that critically assessed the ruling party’s performance in its two decades of rule. The paper was known for its bold coverage of local issues.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, said last month that Ethiopia had violated Woubshet’s rights by failing to address his allegations of being tortured in custody, despite Ethiopia’s commitment to “uphold the highest standard of human rights.”

CPJ research shows that other states that have imprisoned journalists have used the tactic of moving journalists to prisons far from their homes as a means of punishing them and their families. Cuba, for example, placed journalists in prisons hundreds of miles from their families at the height of the Black Spring crackdown in 2003, according to CPJ research.

Ethiopia: Jailed hero journalist Woubshet Taye off to Zeway death camp

The Horn Times News 20 April 2013
by Getahune Bekele, South Africa

As the unpopular, corrupt and  inefficient   minority  junta continues to govern the police state Ethiopia with brute iron hand, dealing ruthlessly with political prisoners and jailed journalists whom it blames for causing  the late despot Meles Zenawi’s “ untimely” death; Ethiopian political prisoners have fallen on hard times filled with dread and terror.

The former Editor of Awramba Times, Wubeshet Taye is the latest Prisoner to be sent to Zeway death camp to serve the remaining time  of his 14 years sentence away from his family, with the likes of Bekele Gerba, Albana Lelisa and several others who are already condemned to the notorious facility.

Chained in leg iron and carrying his belongings in tiny bag, hundreds of curios inmates at Kilinto prison watched the young scribe taken away by more than 20 TPLF soldiers on Tuesday morning April 16 2013.

A friend of the terrorized journalist confirmed to the Horn Times that Woubshet Taye is currently in Zeway, still in leg iron like all political prisoners.

The 2011 trial of Woubshet Taye was at the time described unfair and was way below the international fair trial standard under the controversial and draconian anti-terrorism law designed to persecute and silence dissenting voices.

The Horn Times franticly tried to talk to TPLF officials in charge of prison administration to find out the reason behind sending opposition prisoners particularly Ethnic Oromos and the Amharas to Zeway during the known malaria season, but none of them were willing to reply including the office of the man himself, warlord Berket Simeon

I am an Amara “ene Amara negne”

by Yilma Bekele

“Ich bin ein Berliner.”  - “I am a Berliner” Those words were spoken by President John F. Kennedy on June 26, 1963 in West Berlin. He said that to show solidarity with the people of Berlin after the East Germans with the approval of the Soviet Union erected the Berlin Wall to prevent their captive citizens from fleeing to the west.

The passage I like the most is when he said “Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis romanus sum ["I am a Roman citizen"]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner!”… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!”

Tell me my fellow Ethiopian. What do you see in the picture?

Today it feels me with so much pride to say all Ethiopians where ever we live say in unison “ene Amara negene”Injustice against any of Ethiopia’s children is injustice to all of her children. We feel each other’s pain. When one Ethiopian is marginalized, when a single Ethiopian is put in harm’s way it is an affront to each one of us and we all suffer. It was none other than Martin Luther King Jr. who took injustice to heart when he declared “he who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

Tell me my fellow Ethiopian. What do you see in the picture? It is a picture of people huddled together. It must be night time, what are they doing outside in the cold? Why are they sad? There is no mistaking that they are our people. I can tell that Ethiopian face from a mile away. Look at that slender chiseled face, kind eyes and welcome demeanor. They are our sisters, brothers, mothers or fathers sitting on bare soil, with no chairs and it is difficult to tell whether it is outdoors or inside. There is no question they seem to be confused, tired, and sad. Notices the young girl on the left with barefoot and looking resigned and observe the father on top right holding his chin and just seeming to wonder about the dire situation. I want you to see  the child on his mother’s lap looking sad and his mother looking straight at the photographer not for pity but seems to be saying  ‘take a good look, don’t forget my ace!’  I cried because I am human, I hurt because I cannot be there to hold their hand, rub their shoulders and ‘whisper it is ok, I am here to help.’ Oh my God the pain is killing me; it is tearing my soul apart. Why is this happening to my people? Why am I witnessing this suffering?

They are not just numbers. They are not statistics we refer to from some paper. They are living, breathing human beings. There is no Ethiopia without them. A house cannot stand without a foundation and a country does not exist without people. The people you see above are Amaras from the region referred to as  Beneshangul/Gumuzl Kilil in Western Ethiopian that were deported from their own land to places they don’t even know. They are the homeless Ethiopians. They are stateless people within a country called Ethiopia. They are the surplus Ethiopians. How does such calamity happen? Was there an invasion by a foreign forcer? Was there some kind of natural disaster? Was there a civil war?