June 14, 2001

 OPEN LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER MELES ZENAWI

PRIME MINISTER,

Now that your government has released from long detention the polit-bureau members of the former ruling Workers' Party of Ethiopia and numerous military officers accused of Red Terror crimes, there is absolutely no justification for keeping in detention many others whose alleged participation in the alleged crimes is very hard to prove or without foundation. It a well-known fact that many detained under horrible conditions in the Akaki-Kaliti prison fall within this category.

SOCEPP will specially want to call for the immediate release of Abera Yemaneab whose detention in December 1993 was illegal from the outset and had very little (if anything) to do with any alleged participation in the Red Terror. As your government releases such top officials of the fallen regime it is justifiable if we also ask for the immediate t release of all the political prisoners in your official and secret prisons. We have in the past fore-worded to your attention he list of such prisoners including those who had disappeared while in custody. The journalists still in prison should be released and the whereabouts of journalists Berhanu Ejigu and Kumsa Berayu must also be revealed.

Prime Minister,

Where are Tsegaye Gebre Medhin and all his comrades who fell into the hands of the TPLF in June 1991? Why is Fitawrari Makonen Dori still in prison? What happened to Abebe Ainekulu? Whya re so amny thousands of prisoners forced to suffer in Shoa Robit? in Zwai? In many other places including Tigrai? The cry for justice and the rule of law reverberates. It is time, we think, to open the prison gates not only for some selected few whose release may bring political gains but for all Ethiopians illegally and unjustly thrown into the prisons and dungeons under your government's control.

SOCEPP