Alemayehu Fentaw

Bertrand Pecquerie, CEO Global Editors Network Paris, France Dear Mr. President, I am writing as a proud member of The Global Editors Network(GEN), a blogger, journalist, and scholar to bring to your attention the continued and ever mounting persecution of journalists by the Government of...

The re-release of Judge Birtukan Mideksa, leader of the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party, Ethiopia's largest opposition party, from prison on 6th of October 2010 has proven to be a no less potent topic for controversy than her re-incarceration on 29th of December 2008 among pundits and analysts. The paper attempts to unmask the motives behind the selection of the procedure that secured Judge Birtukan Mideksa's re-release from Qaliti prison and its ramifications on her political career. In so doing, I shall trace the latest decision by the government to release Birtukan for a second time in just about two years since her re-incarceration back to a couple of posts on Aiga Forum in January and September 2010 and link it to a hint made in public by the Prime Minister and to an article published in the Reporter on 2nd of October 2010, just about 3 days before her actual release, or a couple of days before the decision was made or communicated to the prison officials with a view to showing a pattern in the scheme of things preceding the taking of the decision for her re-release. It concludes that in both of Birtukan's sailings out of prison, the master of the ship was none other than the Prime Minister. One thing that the granting of pardon in both instances proved to all of us is nothing but the unbearable lightness of pardons. In spite of the cruel and inhumane treatment Birtukan received in the hands of her jailors, one thing that is certain is that she will remain to be a source of inspiration for all who work to advance basic human rights in Ethiopia and the world over.

This article contends that the legacy that the Victory of Adwa left to the diverse cultural communities of Ethiopia as a national symbol is ambiguous. This is so, because, to the dismay of the diverse cultural communities of Ethiopia, who had fought back colonial rule successfully at Adwa, successive rulers embarked on a nation-building project, bent on bloody suppression of their cultural diversity to the language and religion of the particular cultural community privileged by the state, soon after their victory at Adwa. In so doing, attempt shall be made to demonstrate that the true, lasting legacy of Adwa consists in patriotic solidarity and cultural diversity, rather than in its national symbolism, inasmuch as the country´s diverse cultural communities could be shown to have for so long been ambivalent about their collective accomplishment as a result of the bloody suppression of their particularistic identities by the central state in the wake of their triumph.

This is an article about the recent drastic measures taken by the Addis Ababa City Administration against real estate developers to expropriate their land holdings and its legal and economic ramifications.

This is an article about anarchy, piracy and terrorism in Somalia and calls for a constructive engagement by the international community.

Different versions of this article has just been published in many print and electronic media including The Reporter, Aiga Forum, and Social Science Research Network(SSRN).

Somalia has long been anarchic, hitting rock bottom claiming #1 in The Fund for Peace´s most recent Failed States Index. It had no functioning central government in the past 19 years, albeit 14 attempts to reconstitute state authority had been made since 1991, when the former Cold War dictator...

Alemayehu Fentaw, a lecturer and advocate, writes on the current and past reconciliation efforts in Ethiopia.

This article has been published on five US-based websites. It was written in response to the passage of a bill that cedes legislative powers to the executive that took place on 9th of October 2008 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The full text of the news story covering the passage of this bill can be accessed at the link below: http://en.ethiopianreporter.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61

published in Ethiomedia

published in Ethiomedia

published in Jimma University Journal of Law

published in Jimma University Journal of Law