SIGN PROTEST PETITION TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE VOA

Ethiopian refugees in peril in Kenyan Capital

15 July 2010: Kenyan police have launched raids in Pangani and other Nairobi districts where many Ethiopians refugees live. More than 35 have already been arrested. The justification made for these brutal actions is the need for security, the anti terror campaign and to flush out so called "illegal aliens". During the raid many refugees have been mistreated, beaten and in some cases even robbed by the police. Read More…

Murderers of Mebatsion (Jattene) Ali and Tesfaye Tadesse still at large

24 June 2010: Mebatsion Ali, also known as Jattene Ali, a former district administrator of Borena, was murdered in a Nairobi Hotel by TPLF gunmen (both hailed from Tigrai). The killers hid in the Nairobi EPRDF embassy until the embassy was able to secretly take them out of Kenya to Tanzania and to send them back to Ethiopia. At the time, the names of the two killers and the man who denounced Jattene, a Borena born man called Guyo, were exposed in statements made by the EPRP for one. The murder was organized and supervised by TPLF general Haielom (now dead) stationed in Awassa. Other TPLF agents were later to murder, in the Thika refugee camp just outside of Nairobi, Afewerk Alemseged, a former official in the fallen regime (whose brother Mulugeta Alemseged is still Meles' private security chief). Read More…

Protest against the death sentence on Jemua Ruphael Amen

24 June 2010: Jemua Ruphael Amen has been sentenced to death by the State controlled court in Addis Abeba. Jenua was the former chief of the planning and economic bureau in Benishangul Gumuz’s regional government and he has been accused of forming the Benishangul Gumuz Liberation Movement and of being trained militarily in Eritrea. The BGLM is accused of killing a number of people and soldiers in the Assossa region. Three other members of the Movement were sentenced to 10 years in prison. Read More…

World Refugee Day: The Worsening Plight of Ethiopian Refugees

As the world observes June 20 refugee day, SOCEPP is sadly obliged to state that the plight of Ethiopian refugees has worsened all over the world. Hundreds of refugees perish in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean s they try o make their way to Yemen or Italy, immigration authorities deny them asylum on the flimsiest of pretexts, Libya holds hundreds in desert prisons, Sudan recently deported 48 Ethiopian refugees to placate the authorities in Addis Abeba. Egypt routinely shoots and kills Ethiopian refugees trying to enter Israel and Israel itself holds dozens of refugees in prisons. Fortress Europe is in place and from London to Oslo, Ethiopians have been denied asylum status and quite a few sent back to a very uncertain fate. Many female refugees have been raped by border police in many places. Read More...

VOA Amahric Service continues with presenting frauds and criminals

27 May 2010: SOCEPP not only strongly protested against the VOA Amharic service sympathetic interviews of those who deny the brutal Red Terror ever took place in Ethiopia but also launched a protest petition that is still being signed by Ethiopians and foreigners aggrieved by this act and travesty. However, the arrogant reporters of the VOA Amharic service have continued with their condemnable action of interviewing a fraud from Canada who claims to be SOCEPP Canada but have also once again given the mike to a Red Terror criminal called Berhanu Damte (also known as Debur) who has yet to pay for many lives lost because of him as a collaborator and official of the totalitarian regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Read More…

SOCEPP Protest Letter to the VOA Director

15 May 2010: This is really one letter we really would have preferred not to write. We know at this time that the repressive regime in Ethiopia is trying to or jamming the VOA broadcast to Ethiopian and heaping accusations against the service. SOCEPP has firmly condemned the regime's measures as arrogant violation against the freedom of the press and, despite many reservations over the years as regards the VOA Ethiopian service and some of its reporters, refrained from commenting this way or that on the VOA service to Ethiopia. Read More…

Crimes of the Meles Zenawi regime: the brutal murder of EDU leaders

13 May 2010: The Meles Zenawi regime is responsible for the brutal murder and disappearance of a number of leaders of the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), an opposition organization, and should account for the crime without any equivocation. Meles Zenawi's group collbaorated with the Sudan to jail and disappear and/or kill the following leaders of the Ethiopian Democratic Union: Read More…

Update on the brutal treatment of journalist Araya T. M. in New Delhi (22 April 2010)

Meles Regime attempts to murder journalist Araya Tesfamariam in New Delhi

20 April 2010: Journalist Araya Tesfamariam, better known as Eyersualem Araya and much admired for his incisive articles (in the now banned ETHIOP newspaper/magazine) exposing the human rights violations of the Meles regime, was attacked on the evening of April 16 in New Delhi by thugs identified as agents of the Meles Zenawi regime. Araya is a refugee in New Delhi with his 14 years old daughter who is sick and needs constant medical care. Read More...

Illegal action against Oromo dissidents

05 April 2010: The regime of Meles Zenawi has for long targeted militants of the Oromo ethnic group and undertaken repression in Oromo inhabited areas. In line with this, a federal court has on March 31 sentenced an Oromo political prisoner to death and another to life in prison while handing down long term prison sentences to 13 other political prisoners, including a TV journalist who is a mother of three children. Read More...

SOCEPP demands the release of all political prisoners not just their humane treatment in captivity

30 March 2010: It is encouraging to note that some members of the US congress and administration are finally expressing some criticism of the totalitarian regime in Addis Abeba, an ally in the so called US war against terror. Yet, we are forced to say too little too rare especially when we observe officials like the US undersecretary of State for African Affairs, Johnny Carson, call on the regime to "treat prisoners humanely". Read More…

Britain should stop supporting repressive regime in Ethiopia

SOCEPP, 26 March 2010: When the TPLF took over power, following the charade of a London conference, Britain became one of the foremost western countries to stand on the side of the ethnic discriminatory Meles regime. The head of the regime's intelligence, Kinfe Gebre Medhin (shot to death later as a result of a power struggle within the ruling group), were trained for a year in Britain, the police got Land Rovers and equipment from London and British intelligence officials helped the TPLF combat the opposition in Eastern African countries like Uganda and Kenya. The backing of Britain was total and real. Read More…

Political prisoner Brtukan Midiksa denied medical attention

SOCEPP, 24 March 2010: The irresponsible statement by Meles Zenawi ("Birtukan Midiksa is fine but she may have gained weight due to lack of exercise") highlights the callousness of the person leading the repressive EPRDF regime that has illegally imprisoned former Judge Birtukan Midiksa. The fact is Birtukan Midiksa, who was in solitary confinement for long in the notorious Kaliti prison, needs urgent medical care. Read More...

Meles Zenawi: trampling on information rights

SOCEPP, 19 March 2010: With the same arrogance that Meles Zenawi has often expressed when he dismisses all calls for the release of political prisoners ("there are none in Ethiopia!"), he has now gone on record boasting that he will order the jamming of the VOA Amharic service. Actually, with the help of the Chinese, the Meles regime has already tried to jam the VOA, and has jammed for the last six months the Finote Democracy radio ( a twice a week broadcast to Ethiopia in Amharic). Read More…

Murder and kidnapping in Harar and Dire Dawa

14 March 2010: Two weeks ago Captain (retired) Eshetu Mengiste was kidnapped in Harar by security forces, taken to a secret location, tortured brutally and his corpse thrown to the hyenas. Captain Eshetu was a well known critic of the Meles Zenawi regime. Similarly, two young friends, Abel Kuba and Dereje Mulugeta, were picked up by the secret police and have been disappeared .People have concluded that they have both been murdered given their known opposition to the Meles regime. Read More…

SOCEPP denounces the brutal murder of Aregawi G/Yohannes

09 March 2010: Once they saw him, two of them grabbed and neutralised him while the others stabbed him and slit his wrists. As he lay in the floor bleeding and dying the six who were pretending to quarrel calmly walked out together--murder mission accomplished. It took the police and the ambulance some two hours to arrive and take the body of Aregawi to the Shire Enda Sellasie hospital. Read More…

SOCEPP Condemns Railroading of 153 People in Negele Borena

02 March 2010: The Meles Zenawi regime has jailed close to 200 people in Negele Borena region since November 2009 and has now charged 153 on the basis of the so called anti terror law, a repressive legislation giving the authorities carte blanche to charge and imprison any one. Read More…

Repression in Gambella reported

17 February 2010: Latest reports from Gambella reveal that a number of students from the Wiburi School have been shot at and also detained in what the regime calls "attempts to disrupt the electoral process". It is to be recalled that few years back the regime’s cadres and security forces massacres close to a thousand Anuaks in Gambella under the direct order of Meles Zenawi, Abay Tsehaie and Dr. Barnabas. The students injured and jailed from the Wiburi school are…Read More...

Torture shames America itself: Protesting the injustice against Binyam Mohamed

13 February 2010: Ethiopian born, Britain resident, Binyam Mohamed, was arrested by Americans in Pakistan and then taken to Morocco, one of the countries where the CIA runs secret prisons. The British MI5 was fully aware of this fact. The guilt of Binyam was never proven and his long detention and suffering was illegal and a travesty of justice. Read More...

Open letter to Prsedinet Jacob Zuma: Protect Ethiopian refugees in South Africa

On February 7, shops owned by Ethiopians and other foreign nationals were looted and the refugees attacked in a service delivery protest that, as happened in July 2009, turned violent and xenophobic. The attacks took place in Siyathemba and Balfour townships. Read More…

Norway – Stop mistreating Ethiopian refugees

SOCEPP has learnt that a number of Ethiopian asylum seekers are undergoing mistreatment and undue incarceration in isolated camps. This is worrying and totally unjust and SOCEPP once again calls on the authorities in Norway to redress the situation without any procrastination. Read More…

Open Letter to US Ambassador Donald Booth

03 Feb 2010: SOCEPP was pleased to hear your declaration, at the Senate Hearing to approve your nomination as US ambassador to Ethiopia, that you would exert pressure on the Meles Zenawi regime to respect the human rights of the Ethiopian people. Not that we have not heard such promises from previous US ambassadors who later turned to be apologists for the repressive regime in Addis Abeba with whom, as you yourself stated, the US has complex interests. Read More...

Letter to all immigration authorities: the right of asylum seeking Ethiopian refugees must be respected

03 Feb 2010: SOCEPP has learnt of the alarming development that quite a few countries have denied Ethiopian refugees asylum rights on grounds that are actually flimsy and without factual basis. … This is why SOCEPP calls on the USA and European countries like Britain, Norway, etc to redress the situation and to correctly and humanely reply to the asylum demands by Ethiopian refugees. Read More...

Sudan Acting against Ethiopian Refugees Again!

22 January 2010: Sudan is once again implementing measures that are negatively affecting the status of Ethiopian refuges and may end up by facilitating their deportation. It is to be noted that Sudan has in the past deported several refugees and one Azanaw Demile has disappeared while another (elder Atanaw Wassie) has died in detention and many still find themselves in Kaliti and other prisons. Read More.....

Call for the release of Bashir Makhral

04 January 2010: Canadian citizen Bashir Makhtal was, three years ago, arrested at a Kenyan border post, shackled and forced onto a night flight to Ethiopia, along with dozens of other foreign nationals. Once in Addis Ababa, he was placed in solitary confinement in a military prison. Railroaded through the state controlled courts in Addis Abeba, Bashir Makhtal was sentenced to life imprisonment on so called "terror related charges". Bashir was held in solitary for a long period with no access to lawyers and without being charged. Read More...