Open Letter to H.E. Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister, regarding demanded death sentence for 38 defendants in Ethiopia

Göttingen (Germany)
H.E. Meles Zenawi

CC:

Mr. Seyoum Mesfin

Minister of Foreign Affairs

CC:

Mr. Assefa Kesito

Minister of Justice

P.O. Box 1370

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Subject: Open Letter to H.E. Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister, regarding demanded death sentence for 38 defendants in Ethiopia

Your Excellency:

Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is extremely concerned regarding the court proceedings against 38 defendants for whom the prosecutor demanded death sentence. We are outraged and condemn this demand. As the trial was not in accordance with international standards neither death nor a prison sentence will be an acceptable outcome of the proceedings.

The 38, among others, had been imprisoned in the aftermath of the 2005 elections in Ethiopia. During protests of the opposition claiming the election’s result had been flawed 193 people were killed. The 38 defendants were all convicted of „outrages against the constitution” in November 2005.

Among the convicted are:

– Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, 76, founder and former president of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council

– Dr Berhanu Negga, elected Mayor of Addis Ababa and an economics professor

– Dr Yakob Hailemariam, law professor and former UN prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

– two women, one of them is Ms Birtukan Mideksa, a former judge

– several journalists, one of them is Mr. Andualem Ayele, editor of Etiop newspaper

– leaders of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD)

All of the convicted refused to defend themselves during the 14-month-long trial as they did not believe to receive a fair trial.

The defendants seem to be prisoners of conscience. To our knowledge, none of them has used or has called for the use of violence. They had been convicted without any court order and were kept in solitary confinement at first.

A release on bail was refused. Furthermore, the prosecution was brought in action through a special-selected team of prosecutors.

The fact that the opposition’s elite, a prominent human rights activist and several journalists are among the defendants sheds a dark light on the freedom of speech as well as the freedom of press in Ethiopia.

The country will have to face severe international image damage should the convicted be sentenced. The case has been observed and strongly criticized by other international human rights and lawyer organizations ever since it began.

Society for Threatened Peoples would like to express its hope that the court will reject the prosecutor’s demand for death sentence for the 38 defendants. We furthermore call for an unconditional immediate release of all democracy-seeking convicts – both for those who were sentenced recently and those whose proceedings are still on-going.

However, in case the 38 persons will be sentenced by the court, we strongly urge the government to unconditionally pardon the convicted immediately.

Yours sincerely,

Tilman Zülch, General Secretary STP Germany

Ulrich Delius, Head of Africa Department, STP Germany