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27 June 2019, 03:01 UTC

As Eritrea chairs the UN Human Rights Council, government officials and supporters abroad are harassing and intimidating exiled human rights defenders and activists simply for criticizing the oppressive regime, shows a new Amnesty International briefing out today.

The briefing, Repression without borders found that human rights defenders are particularly at risk in Kenya, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, where Amnesty International documented attacks by Eritrean government officials and supporters on government critics, including an Eritrean Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Father Mussie Zerai, and former BBC Africa Editor Martin Plaut.

For many HRDs, fleeing Eritrea has not provided them with much respite from the repression many people die trying to escape.
Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty International’s Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes

“For many HRDs, fleeing Eritrea has not provided them with much respite from the repression many people die trying to escape. They have to constantly look over their shoulders and watch every word they say, afraid of the long arm of the Eritrean government which evidently extends across borders,” said Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty International’s Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.

Supporters of Eritrea’s ruling party and government officials use all manner of tactics to harass and intimidate critics of President Isaias Afwerki’s government and its human rights violations. These tactics include death threats, physical assault and spreading of lies.

They have to constantly look over their shoulders and watch every word they say, afraid of the long arm of the Eritrean government which evidently extends across borders.
Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty International’s Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes

The briefing, which examines the period from 2011 to May 2019, also highlights the authorities’ use of the militant youth wing of the ruling party to “fight the country’s enemies” in Europe and the USA.

In April this year, Eritrea’s Minister of Information Yemane Gebre Meskel, the ambassador to Japan, Estifanos Afeworki, and his counterpart in Kenya, Beyene Russom, took to Twitter and harassed, intimidated and disparaged organizers and participants of a conference in London on ‘Building Democracy in Eritrea’. In his tweet, Minister Gebre Meskel dismissed the organizers as “Eritrean quislings”.

Such Twitter tirades by government officials clearly show the authorities’ intolerance of dissent and criticism by anyone anywhere.
Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty International’s Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes

“Such Twitter tirades by government officials clearly show the authorities’ intolerance of dissent and criticism by anyone anywhere, even at a time when the country is chairing the UN Human Rights Commission,” said Joan Nyanyuki.

Militant party supporters

Supporters of Eritrea’s ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), and notably its youth wing, the Young People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (YPFDJ), are at the forefront of these attacks on Eritrean human rights defenders and activists in Europe.

In deciding a defamation case in Amsterdam, a Dutch court in Feb 2016 ruled as follows:

“…YPFDJ receives instructions from the PFDJ, that the YPFDJ has (support of) the regime of Afewerki as its goal and that members of the YPFDJ are acting as informants for (the embassies of) the regime in Eritrea. The YPFDJ can thus, at this point, be called the extended arm of a dictatorial regime.”

Winta Yemane, born in Italy and eager to connect with her Eritrean roots, joined the youth wing while in high school, and participated in their 2011 annual conference held in Oslo, Norway. When she articulated her wishes for the country’s constitution, human rights and an independent judiciary, she quickly found herself on the wrong side of senior government officials in attendance.

The officials said that I am a victim of misinformation by the western propaganda and enemies of Eritrea.
Winta Yemane, Eritrean based in Italy

“The officials said that I am a victim of misinformation by the western propaganda and enemies of Eritrea. They also said that my comments do not have weight because I am a minor. Three of the organizers even threatened to throw me out of the conference,” Winta told Amnesty International.

Upon returning home to Milan, she was stalked for a couple of weeks, received threatening phone calls from unknown numbers and was the victim of a smear campaign on social media.

Several other Eritreans living in the diaspora including Daniel Mekonnen, Director of the association of Eritrean lawyers in exile and Father Mussie Zerai, a Catholic priest nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for his work with migrants, also said they found themselves on the wrong side of the ruling party’s supporters and endured similar harassment and attacks.

Eritrea’s Ambassador to Japan Estifanos Afeworki praised the journalist’s attack on Twitter.

This treatment is, however, not reserved for Eritreans. Former BBC Africa Editor Martin Plaut on 30 November 2018 was lured into a meeting with an Eritrean “source” at the British Library in London and doused with a bucket of liquid for his journalistic work on human rights in the country, and called a “traitor”. Eritrea’s Ambassador to Japan Estifanos Afeworki praised the journalist’s attack on Twitter.

Nairobi: “Subversive, Terrorists”

In Nairobi in 2013, following an initiative to set up and register a diaspora civic organisation – the Eritrean Diaspora for East Africa (EDEA), the Eritrean Embassy revoked the Eritrean passport of Chairman and Co-founder Hussein Osman Said and had him arrested in South Sudan by alleging that he was a terrorist working to sabotage the Eritrean government.

EDEA officials told Amnesty International when they tried to launch the organisation in February 2015, two people who identified themselves as members of Kenya’s National Intelligence Service ordered them not to proceed with the event, alleging that they had intelligence that EDEA had been established to overthrow the Eritrean government.

Eritrea’s use of its embassies abroad to harass and repress its critics must not be allowed to continue.
Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty International’s Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes

Such baseless claims against activities planned by Eritreans in Kenya continued in 2017, when the Eritrean Embassy wrote to the United Nations Office in Nairobi (UNON) claiming some 13 guests invited for an art exhibition were “subversive”. UNON subsequently barred the 13 from entering the UN complex at Gigiri, where the exhibition was taking place.

“Eritrea’s use of its embassies abroad to harass and repress its critics must not be allowed to continue,” said Joan Nyanyuki.

“Ambachew had called a meeting to discuss ways of stopping General Asamnew from recruiting more people for his paramilitary forces. The meeting was also intended to discuss firing him.”

Source: The Economist

Mysterious unrest shines a spotlight on opposition to Abiy Ahmed, the reformist prime minister.

A YEAR AGO, on June 23rd 2018, Ethiopia’s newly-inaugurated prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, took to the podium wearing a bright green T-shirt. Smiling and waving he offered hope to the tens of thousands of people who had flocked to a rally in the capital, Addis Ababa, in support of his promise to bring democracy to a country that has seen precious little of it.

Almost to the day a year later he again addressed the nation, this time on national television wearing army uniform to declare, stony faced, that his government had just thwarted a coup. It was a sharp reminder of the fragility of his democratic revolution.

Abiy said that the putsch had originated in the northern region of Amhara, Ethiopia’s second-biggest by population, and was the work of General Asamnew Tsige, Amhara’s head of security. The prime minister’s office claimed that General Asamnew was responsible for an attack on government offices in the regional capital, Bahir Dar, on June 22nd in which the Amhara region’s president, Ambachew Mekonnen, and other senior officials were shot dead.

In a separate attack in Addis Ababa, the army’s chief of staff, Seare Mekonnen, was allegedly shot and killed in his home by a bodyguard. Also killed in this attack was a retired general who had been visiting. The government said both attacks were linked, and claimed the coup was an attempt “to scupper the hard won peace of the region”.

Since then the government has shut off the internet and released few details of the plot. But, from what little information has emerged the incidents look more like an unplanned outbreak of violence than a calculated attempt to seize power.

General Asamnew was a former political prisoner sentenced in 2009 for his alleged role in another failed coup. He was released and appointed by Abiy last year in an attempt to reach out to the opposition and include it in positions of power. But General Asamnew provoked alarm with his strident ethnic nationalism and talk of defending Amhara territory against incursions by members of Ethiopia’s other ethnic groups. Underpinning such concerns has been a worrying spread of ethnic violence and nationalism across the country as Abiy has lifted the repressive hand of one-party rule.

Abiy’s ascent to power was fuelled by rising nationalism among his own ethnic group, the Oromo. They make up about one-third of the population and had felt dominated by the Tigrayans, a group that accounts for less than one-tenth of the population but that had largely called the shots in government since the toppling of a Marxist dictatorship, the Derg, in 1991. Rising Oromo nationalism has been mirrored in other groups, including the Tigrayans and the Amhara, who make up about one-quarter of Ethiopia’s population and had once ruled the roost under its last emperor, Haile Selassie, deposed in 1974.

General Asamnew raised further eyebrows when he began strengthening the region’s paramilitary forces, including a special police unit that answered directly to him. It was not just the federal government that seemingly wanted to clip his wings but also Ambachew, the region’s more moderate president. People familiar with the events on June 22nd say that Ambachew had called a meeting to discuss ways of stopping General Asamnew from recruiting more people for his paramilitary forces. The meeting was also intended to discuss firing him.

It seems that General Asamnew sent in men from his special police force to the meeting; there are also some suggestions that he may have been present outside the building at the time. It is not clear whether he intended for his men to open fire and kill the region’s president or the confrontation spiralled bloodily out of control. General Asamnew fled immediately afterwards—a further indication that this may not have been an organised putsch—but was tracked down and killed by the army in Amhara two days later, according to the government.

There are still many unanswered questions, including how events in Bahir Dar may have been connected to the killing of the head of the national army in his home in Addis Ababa. If the incidents were indeed linked, as the government claims, that would imply some degree of forethought by the plotters and point to the possibility of a wider conspiracy. If that is the case then it would suggest that Abiy faces a threat from elements of the national army.

The political ramifications may be far reaching in a country that hitherto stood out for offering hope of political and economic reform in Africa. Some now expect a campaign to suppress “nationalist” forces in Amhara, including youth groups and opposition movements. This in turn may stoke further resentment in the region, in which many young people are beginning to feel discriminated against by Abiy and his Oromo faction of the ruling coalition. Whatever the exact details of the events on June 22nd, the euphoria that greeted Abiy’s rise to power a year ago is beginning to seem a distant memory.

Source=https://martinplaut.wordpress.com/2019/06/27/the-economist-killings-and-claims-of-an-attempted-coup-rock-ethiopia/