by ERecycler
Today is the 27th day in jail for Zone 9 Bloggers in Ethiopia. They have not been charged; in fact, the government could not come up with reasonable cause for detaining the 6 bloggers and 3 journalists. It has now come to our attention that two have been tortured. All they did was blog about conditions in their own country. Corruption has gone out of control; in a decade beginning in 2001 $16.5 billions have been illicitly transferred to foreign banks [according to Washington, DC-based Global Financial Integrity]. There are chronic water, power and food shortages. The state security literally eavesdrops on telephone conversations and controls Internet connectivity making Ethiopia the least served in Africa. The ruling party took office through the barrel of the gun and divided the country arbitrarily along ethnic lines [and later orchestrated a sham elections that it won]. This is 22 years ago. It has made it clear that it will not hand over or share power through the ballot box. It refused to abide by results of the 2005 elections when it was dealt a humiliating defeat. A year later, it abolished all opposition on the pretext of terrorism which the US and UK governments wholly endorsed and financed. All grassroots organizations that the ruling party did not like were de-registered. Ethiopia now leads the world in the number of journalists jailed or exiled and in human rights abuses.
If you are a blogger you can be part of a global effort to give voice to those denied and to help free those in jail for demanding their constitutional and unalienable rights. Please send a note to Obama and Cameron Administrations, to European Parliament, etc or simply to friends. We can change conditions both locally and globally if we come together. We refuse to bend to those who seek to divide our humanity in order to remain in power! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!
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