Rosa Anyango poses near the ancestral home of U.S. President Barack Obama in Nyangoma village in Kogelo, west of Kenya's capital Nairobi. (Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)
The Ethiopia visit has raised hackles among human rights advocates who question the administration’s level of concern about human rights, as it seeks to advance new security and economic goals on a continent where good governance and democratic freedoms often do not top the priority list.
“The decision to go to Ethiopia greatly undermines the stated goals and commitments of this administration when it comes to support for human rights, the rule of law and good governance in Africa and beyond,” said Sarah Margon, Human Rights Watch’s Washington director. “It shows that it ranks priorities and shows that security and development often trump human rights concerns, which is a very short-sighted policy approach.”
Dozens of journalists left Ethiopia last year, saying they faced threats from the government because of the work they do. In April 2014 the government charged seven bloggers known as Zone 9 and three reporters under the country’s anti-terrorism law; a few months later the owners of six private publications were charged under Ethiopia’s criminal code. In early July the government released two bloggers and four journalists, though according to the Committee to Protect Journalists at least a dozen members of the media remain jailed on terrorism charges.
Ethiopia’s ambassador to the United States, Girma Biru, described Obama’s decision to visit his country as “confirmation of the strong relationship that’s been built between the two countries.”
Biru said prosecuting journalists was not evidence of human rights violations. “If a journalist, or a teacher, or a professor, or a farmer is supporting these types of groups to instigate violence, then he should be charged,” he said. “But the fact that he is carrying the name of ‘journalist’ should not save him from being charged on this ground.”
On July 6, Ethiopia’s Federal High Court convicted leaders of the Ethiopian Muslims protest movement on charges of terrorism and conspiracy to create an Islamic state in Ethiopia. The verdict — against two Muslim journalists, 10 activists and six members of the Ethiopian Muslims Arbitration Committee — came after three years of a politically motivated trial whose outcome was long ago determined. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 3.
The trial and the verdict against the Muslim leaders is a political spectacle designed to conceal the regime’s reindoctrination campaign and silence long-standing grievances of the Muslim population. The crackdown on Muslim activists is part of the ruling party’s larger crusade against journalists, bloggers, activists and opposition leaders and supporters.
A peaceful movement
The Ethiopian Muslims movement was organized around the community’s three core demands: ending the government’s continued control of the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, the official Islamic authority in Ethiopia; terminating the controversial reindoctrination of Ethiopian Muslims launched by the government in July 2011; and reopening the Awoliya College, the country’s only Muslim college. Authorities closed the institution in 2011, alleging it had become a breeding ground for radicals.
While the government has always controlled the council, it was Awoliya’s closure and the coercive reindoctrination campaign that triggered the confrontation. The government denies allegations of interference and control of religious institutions, but a leaked audio from the initial indoctrination sessions shows that it has invited preachers from Lebanon to introduce Al-Ahbash, a supposedly moderate sect of Sunni Islam, to Ethiopia.
Authorities arrested members of the Arbitration Committee in July 2012 after negotiations with the government failed, and they were charged with “intending to advance a political, religious or ideological cause” by force, signaling the impending criminalization of the peaceful movement.
Repressive political ends
Since the disputed 2005 elections and the mass arrests of opposition leaders and journalists, the use of court proceedings for repressive political ends has become one of the signature traits of the Ethiopian government. The primary purpose of these administrative acts disguised as criminal proceedings is the elimination of political opposition and critical voices. These trials function not to adjudicate legal disputes but to remove actors from the democratic sphere. The judicial machinery is set in motion not to determine guilt or innocence but to sustain and consolidate the government’s authoritarian stranglehold on its people.
In order to build a coherent narrative, the government often recasts genuine grievances as a national security threat and reconfigures activism as criminal offenses. For example, it accused the jailed Muslim leaders of working in tandem with foreign terrorist groups to destabilize Ethiopia and undo its economic progress. By dramatizing the impending danger and alleged links to regional militant groups such as Somalia’s Al-Shabab and Nigeria’s Boko Haram, the defendants’ prolonged trial was used to create an alternative reality manufactured by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
The accused Muslim leaders see their actions as a defense of the constitution and their trial as persecution — a dubious plot to delegitimize their peaceful protests against the injustices of the state.
The government presented various forms of evidence — including documents, audio and video of sermons and speeches by the defendants, witness testimonies and material obtained through surveillance. However, most of the evidence was presented in closed sessions, and the accused were not given adequate opportunities for cross-examination. The government has deployed stealth propaganda to incriminate the defendants. Since the committee members’ arrests, authorities have produced two fake documentaries intended to generate images and narratives of terrorism to scare Christian Ethiopians and Western observers, in flagrant violation of the presumption of defendants’ innocence until proven guilty.
The verdict of history
The accused Muslim leaders see their actions as a defense of the constitution and their trial as persecution — a dubious plot to delegitimize their peaceful protests against the injustices of the state. The government misrepresented their cause in a desperate attempt to suppress their aspiration and consolidate its control over religious institutions and doctrines.
As the judge read out the verdict, one of the committee members accused the judge of being complicit in the perversion of justice and reading a judgment “written by the security establishment,” according to defense lawyers. “We appear before this court not because we thought that this court is an institution of truth and justice that judges without fear of favor but to clarify the historical record,” another defendant said.
The trial has been an occasion for the defendants to mount their objection to the government’s oppressive narratives and expose its abuse of institutions of truth and justice. As part of their struggle over the historical record, the committee members petitionedAfrica’s top human rights watchdog, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to intervene in the matter. Given the justice system’s lack of independence, the defendants are seeking to present their version of events before an independent international institution, contesting the allegations and images the government created in a trial in which it is both prosecutor and judge. In February 2015 the commission granted a provisional measure, asking Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to undertake a full investigation into allegations of torture and other violations of due process rights.
The EPRDF is using counterterrorism as carte blanche to consolidate its authoritarian control over the country. Meanwhile, the United States, Ethiopia’s close ally in the global war on terrorism, has turned a blind eye to the misuse and abuse of its counterterrorism funding. President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to Addis Ababa would be seen as yet another seal of approval for the regime’s repressive practices and the ruling party’s landslide victory in the recent elections. Ethiopia’s sudden and unexplained release of journalists and bloggers ahead of Obama’s visit later this month is a strategic move meant to assuage Washington’s concerns and to minimize the bad publicity around their continued incarceration.
Regardless of the outcome of these trials, history’s judgment will be different. In the verdict of history and the archives and repertoires of the oppressed, these individuals, like many who came before them, will be seen as victims of a grotesque system of justice.
Awol Allo is a fellow in human rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial polic
Israel Accused of Racism Over Case of Ethiopian Jew Missing in Gaza
As gag order lifted, small Ethiopian community says the case of Avraham Mengistu, who disappeared 10 months ago, has been ‘swept under the carpet’.
by Jonathan Cook / July 11th, 2015
The belated admission by Israel that one of its citizens was last seen entering Gaza 10 months ago, and that little is known of his fate since, has caused outrage among the country’s small community of Ethiopian Jews.
Avraham Mengistu’s family, able to speak for the first time on Thursday after a gag order imposed since September was lifted, accused the government and security forces of foot-dragging and racism.
The assumption among Israeli authorities is that the 28-year-old has been detained by Hamas in Gaza since he went missing.
Officials confirmed at the same time that another Israeli civilian, a Bedouin man from the Negev who has yet to be identified, had crossed the fence enclosing Gaza in April.
Mengistu’s family said he was “unwell”. A military source told the media Mengistu had been exempted from the army draft years earlier because of mental health issues.
At a hastily convened press conference in Mengistu’s home town of Ashkelon, a few kilometres north of Gaza, the family suggested that they had been told to keep quiet to avoid placing the government under pressure to negotiate with Hamas.
“We will no longer remain silent,” said one of Mengistu’s brothers, Yalu, on Thursday. “There will be rallies and demonstrations, there will be media coverage and especially, we will be talking. They will hear us. We have lost confidence in the country and it seems like it does not care about our brother.”
Complaints of discrimination
The Ethiopian community has long complained of racism and police brutality.
But tensions have been especially high since the spring, when Ethiopian youths clashed repeatedly with police in protests in Tel Aviv. The demonstrations were triggered by a video of an Ethiopian soldier, dressed in his Israeli army uniform, being beaten by police in what appeared to be an unprovoked attack.
“The Ethiopian community knows well that there is racism towards it in most areas of life,” Efrat Yerday, an Ethiopian activist and blogger, told MEE. “This latest incident simply underlines that in a very graphic way.
“Were it any other Israeli in Gaza apart from an Ethiopian and a Bedouin, the matter would not have been swept under the carpet. There has been a complete blackout for nearly a year.”
Anger from the Ethiopian community was also fuelled by a recording broadcast on Channel 10 TV of Lior Lotan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s envoy, meeting the Mengistus shortly before the gag was lifted.
Lotan is heard angrily rebuking the family and making threats that, if they criticise Netanyahu, it will “cause [Mengistu] to stay in Gaza for another year”.
A defence ministry official on Friday told the AFP news agency that Lotan had apologised for “both the tone and content of the conversation”.
Mehereta Baruch-Ron, an Ethiopian deputy to the mayor of Tel Aviv, said Lotan’s behaviour typified how officials “patronise” the Ethiopian community.
“We are seen as people who are quiet and accepting of whatever is thrown at us,” she told MEE. “But the situation is changing fast, as the recent protests prove. People want change.”
Continuing uncertainty
Israeli officials have defended the use of a gag on the media, saying it was necessary while they tried to determine Mengistu’s status and work on a strategy for extracting him from the tiny enclave.
But the continuing uncertainty after so many months has only added to the family’s anger. “I’m one million percent sure if he was white, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Yalu Mengistu told reporters.
The comment appeared to be a reference to the difference in the Israeli authorities’ handling of Mengistu’s case and that of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Shalit was captured in 2006 and held prisoner by Hamas in Gaza for five years. Israel was reported to have scoured Gaza for signs of Shalit, while a massive campaign of support for him soon swept Israel. Banners and billboards featuring Shalit’s face were plastered on street corners.
The pressure eventually forced the government to agree a prisoner swap in 2011 that freed more than 1,000 Palestinian detainees. Security officials have made it a priority to ensure that such prisoner swaps do not occur again.
In stark contrast to the general clamour over Shalit, only a few members of the Ethiopian community were aware until Thursday that Mengistu had entered Gaza.
The extent of the blackout was underscored by the number of senior officials who said they knew nothing about Mengistu until the gag was lifted, including Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister until May’s general election.
Tzachi Hanegbi, the head of the parliament’s defence committee, told Israeli radio: “You’d be surprised, I had no idea.”
Ignorance ‘astounding’
Pnina Tamano-Shata, an Ethiopian legislator until the recent election, told MEE the level of ignorance among senior officials was “astounding”.
She said she had been helping the family since they emailed her last year. “I couldn’t believe that what they were telling me was true but when I discovered it was I couldn’t believe no one else was talking about it.”
She said she had informed 10 senior members of the parliament herself. “None of them did anything.”
Mengistu’s condition is unclear, as is whether he is still in Gaza.
Although Israel accuses Hamas of holding him prisoner, some Hamas officials have said he was released soon after he arrived in Gaza, when it became clear he was not a soldier.
Mengistu is reported to have entered Gaza in early September, climbing over the usually tightly controlled perimeter fence days after the end of Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s attack on the enclave last summer.
Other Hamas officials have suggested that he later left Gaza through one of the tunnels into Egypt, apparently in an effort to reach Ethiopia.
But Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal indicated on Thursday that the group might be holding him. He said there would be no talks about the two men until Israel released 70 Hamas members seized by Israel last summer.
He added that Israel had also been trying to negotiate through European mediators the return of the bodies of two soldiers killed in Gaza last summer.
Family rebuffed
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had told Mengistu’s parents “that since the moment we were informed of the incident, we have done everything we can to bring him back to Israel.”
The family, however, disagreed. They said it took the Israeli army two weeks to brief them about his disappearance back in September, and that attempts to meet government officials, including Netanyahu, had been repeatedly rebuffed.
The father of the missing Bedouin man said he too had been kept in the dark. “I have no idea where my son is, nobody told me he’s in Gaza and I don’t know if he’s there or not,” he told the Haaretz daily.
Mengistu’s father, Ayele, told Channel 10 that the army had broken their promise to take care of Mengistu in return for the family’s silence. “They didn’t do anything,” he said.
Yerday said Ethiopian community leaders had learnt that Mengistu was in Gaza shortly after he went missing, but had been forced to keep quiet.
“We tried to raise attention through social media but we had to be careful about saying too much because of the censorship rules,” Yerday said. “It is dangerous to speak out in Israel on issues that have been declared a security matter.”
In protest, many Ethiopian activists had replaced their social media profile pictures with a black background and Mengistu’s name in white letters. Others had been wearing T-shirts, including at recent demonstrations, bearing Mengistu’s name followed by a question mark.
Israel’s 130,000 Ethiopians make up slightly less than two percent of the population. The older generation were brought to Israel under the Law of Return in a series of airlifts beginning in the 1980s, but their Jewishness has been questioned by a number of rabbis and is still doubted by some Israelis.
President apologises
At a ceremony in Jerusalem in May commemorating Ethiopians who lost their lives trying to reach Israel – hundreds are estimated to have died making the journey from Ethiopia to the camps in Sudan from where the airlifts took place – President Reuven Rivlin apologised for the poor treatment of the community. He said: “We didn’t see, we didn’t act correctly and we did not listen enough.”
Ethiopian activists, however, say there is little sign of a change in official attitudes.
Ortal, who was involved in the recent protests but did not want to give her full name, said the community was shocked that police responded to the demonstrations with stun grenades, tear gas and water cannon. Such crowd control equipment is more familiar from crackdowns on protests by Palestinian citizens.
“The examples of racism and discrimination have been going on for more than 30 years and I don’t see change happening,” she said. “Maybe our parents who were new to the country were prepared to accept this treatment, but the young people will no longer stay quiet.”
Official figures show Ethiopians face widespread discrimination in jobs, housing and education, while poverty rates are similar to those faced by Israel’s Palestinian minority.
In 2010 it emerged that a controversial long-term birth control injection was being administered to many Ethiopian women, apparently as a way to control their fertility.
Blood donations from Ethiopians are also routinely discarded or refused for fear donors may be carriers of HIV and other diseases.
At May’s commemoration ceremony, Netanyahu promised to root out such attitudes: “We will turn racism into something contemptible and despicable. There are societies that have succeeded in rising above this filth.”
