This month, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to attend the 21st African Union (AU) summit. The message he brings will speak volumes about the future of American engagement on the continent.In announcing the visit during a U.S. Senate hearing last month, Mr. Kerry expressed concern about the potentially negative impact of China’s and Iran’s increased presence in Africa. He noted that graft and poor development choices could undermine the stability of some African governments, and he acknowledged the need for more U.S. engagement.Further American cooperation on development and security would be good news for Africa. But the U.S. must continue to focus on another potentially destabilizing factor in the continent: ongoing violations of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.Since their inception, the AU and its precursor, the Organization of African Unity, have embraced the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights expressly protects a raft of basic human rights, including freedom of association, free expression and political participation. But despite these affirmations, the protection of such rights remains inconsistent across AU nations. Some governments continue to ignore certain provisions entirely.If he needs an example, Mr. Kerry need only look out his window in Addis Ababa. This month the Ethiopian Supreme Court upheld an 18-year prison sentence against independent journalist Eskinder Nega.Though the Ethiopian government is often touted as a close U.S. partner on security and poverty-reduction efforts, it has a dreadful record on rights. After parliamentary elections in 2005, the government jailed opposition leaders such as former judge Birtukan Mideksa and independent journalists who reported on the post-election unrest.Mr. Nega and his wife Serkalem Fasil, herself a prominent publisher, were among those arrested. They spent 17 months in a detention center on trumped-up charges of treason and genocide before they were finally released. Pregnant at the time of her arrest, Ms. Fasil was denied prenatal care for seven months and gave birth to their son Nafkot while in custody.In the spring of 2011, as popular uprisings gathered momentum across North Africa and the Middle East, Mr. Nega wrote extensively about their possible impact on Ethiopia. Despite warnings that he was going too far, Mr. Nega continued to write and speak publicly, often criticizing the government and calling for democratic reforms, while emphasizing the importance of nonviolence. But like fellow journalists Reeyot Alemu and Woubshet Taye, and opposition activists such as Andualem Aragie, Mr. Nega was charged in September 2011 under Ethiopia’s widely criticized 2009 Antiterrorism Proclamation. He now faces 18 years in prison.The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has expressed grave alarm at Ethiopia’s persecution of journalists and peaceful activists. In April the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also weighed in, declaring Mr. Nega’s detention illegal under international law and calling for his immediate release. But these admonitions have so far not convinced Ethiopian authorities to change course.When U.S. President Barack Obama laid out his administration’s agenda for sub-Saharan Africa last summer, he emphasized strong democratic institutions and respect for the rule of law, noting that these promote both prosperity and stability. But as long as journalists and political activists are imprisoned for speaking their truth to power, such principles will remain illusory.Mr. Kerry has an important opportunity this month to convey that very message to his counterparts in Addis Ababa. Mr. Nega and his colleagues deserve nothing less.Mr. Schibbye is a Swedish journalist who was detained in Ethiopia for 14 months under the country’s antiterror laws and held at Kaliti Prison with Eskinder Nega. Mr. Griffith is an attorney with Freedom Now, a legal advocacy organization that works to free prisoners of conscience, including Mr. Nega.

By Martin Schibbye And Patrick Griffith

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopian police have arrested a minister and 11 other people on corruption charges, an official and state media said on Saturday, in the country’s most high-profile swoop against graft for more than a decade.Businesses in the region regularly complain of corruption as an obstacle to their work. Transparency International ranked Ethiopia 113 out of 176 nations worldwide in its 2012 perception of corruption index, where No. 1 is considered least corrupt.That ranking puts Ethiopia above most nations in the Horn of Africa and east Africa regions, although Rwanda is ranked 50.Melaku Fenta, a senior ruling party member and director general of the revenue and customs authority with the rank of minister, was arrested on Friday alongside two other officials from the authority, government spokesman Shimeles Kemal said.”They were under investigation on suspicion of corrupt practices,” Shimeles told Reuters, without giving details.The spokesman said there were further arrests as well but did not give a total. The state news agency reported 12 arrests overall. Independently, newspapers said the arrests included a prominent businessman and customs employees outside the capital.Global Financial Integrity last year said Addis Ababa lost $11.7 billion in outflows of illegal funds in the past decade.Melaku is the most high profile suspect to be arrested on corruption charges since Siye Abraha, a former defense minister who was released in 2007 after six years behind bars. However, he was already out of government when arrested.(Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Edmund Blair/Mark Heinrich)

When the dictators incarcerate valued and exceptional leaders without justice, it is not only to bar them from their followers, but to break their soul in irreversible manner. Today our brave Ethiopians broke the passion of the oppressor by having a wedding inside the notorious Qaliti prison. Even if the bride and groom made their contact behind the miserable fence, they have touched millions on their shiny love story for generations to come. Yes, the participants sang cultural and religious songs! But they were also singing a freedom anthem about their famous leader Abubekir Ahmed while approaching the prison.Ethiopian Muslims have showed their unwavering struggle to earn their freedom of religion in a peaceful routine. The ruling junta attempted to interrupt this nonviolent routine in several occasions, they have sent cadres to trigger chaos inside demonstrations, they have recruited influential figures and prominent preachers, but they failed miserably.Ethiopian Muslims have contained the malicious strategy of T.P.L.F in extreme superior custom, by applying patriotic and peaceful ways en route for their freedom. Today’s wedding is a reflection of dominance under the constitution, they are demonstrating by preparing a historical wedding inside the prison, a motorcade was making a parade, a forceful honk streamed throughout Addis Ababa, the youth clapped and sang happily by dreaming tomorrow. There was a chorus among the women, you perhaps take our men to the jail, but we will get married among the innocent prisoners until you fade up arresting our men. The government could brag for having strong military force, but today’s wedding was powerful enough to contain the heart and minds of the military.What a peaceful struggle!

I wish a happy holiday for my Christian brothers and sisters!

So that I may do the deed That my soul has to itself decreed.” - Keates

Individuals can be penalized, made to suffer (oh, how I miss my child) and even killed. But democracy is a destiny of humanity which cannot be averted. It can be delayed but not defeated.No less significant, absent trials and tribulations, democracy would be devoid of the soul that endows it with character and vitality. I accept my fate, even embrace it as serendipitous. I sleep in peace, even if only in the company of lice, behind bars. The same could not be said of my incarcerator though they sleep in warm beds, next to their wives, in their home.The government has been able to lie in a court of law effortlessly as a function of the moral Paucity of our politics. All the great crimes of history, lest we forget, have their genesis in the moral wilderness of their times.The mundane details of the case offer nothing substantive but what chritopher Hitchens once described as “a vortex of irrationality and nastiness.” Suffice to say, that this is Ethiopia’s dreyful affair. Only this time, the despondency of withering tyranny, not smutty bigotry, is at play.Martin aims wrote, quoting Alexander Solzhenitsyn, that Stalinism (in the 30s) tortured you not to force you to reveal a secret, but to collude you in a fiction. This Is also the basic rational of the unfolding human rights crisis in Ethiopia. And the same 30s bravado that show-trials can somehow vindicate banal injustice pervades official thinking want to unlearn from history; we aptly repeat even its most brazen mistakes.Why should the rest of the world care? Horace said it best :mutate nomine detefabula narrator.” change only the name and this story is also about you.” Whenever justice suffers our common humanity suffers, too.I will live to see the light at the end of the tunnel. it may or may not be a long wait. Whichever way events may go, I shall persevere!

Liberte, egalite, fraternite. History shall absolve democracy!

Ethiopia’s award-winning journalist Eskinder Nega is serving an 18-year sentence as a terrorist. The entire civilzed world has condemned the charges as well as the sentencing of the prominent, Pen USA Award winner Eskinder. The struggle continues to free Eskinder and all other political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.

Ethiopian students dropout rates highlight one of the many challenges facing the Ethiopian community in Israel, Shapira says.

State Comptroller Joseph Shapira hands Knesset Speaker Edelstein annual report, May 8 Photo: Courtesy of KnessetDespite the government’s visible and significant efforts to advance the integration of Ethiopian olim into Israeli society, gaps still remain in various fields such as welfare, education and employment among others, according to the State Comptroller Report released on Wednesday.As of 2012, some 120,000 citizens of Ethiopian origin reside in Israel, as stated in the document, representing some 1.5 percent of the total population. A third of them were born in Israel.Related:Comptroller report slams state on Ethiopian, migrant rights’State violating law of foreign-resident minors’In the last few years, the country has seen an average of 1,500 new immigrants from Ethiopia per year, only half of what used to be a year ten year ago.The report pointed out that in the past 20 years, the State of Israel taken important measures and has invested hundreds of millions of NIS in order to advance their integration, which is considered unique due to the existing cultural differences, through different national programs. Nevertheless, problems remain.In the field of education, the report revealed that in the 2010-2011 academic year, out of Israel’s 12,546 students enrolled in pre-academic programs, only 1,000 were of Ethiopian origin.Some 28.5% of them dropped out of the programs compared to 22% for the rest of the students.Among those who finished the pre-academic programs, more than half of the Ethiopian students did not go on to study at universities, compared to 41% for the rest of the students.In addition, among those who had started their studies in 2011, the dropout rate of Ethiopian students from universities was 19%, some 8% higher than that of the rest of the students. In private colleges, 13,5% of Ethiopians dropped out, compared to only 10% for the rest of the population.Also, out of 22,000 engineering and technology students, only 194 were Ethiopian.In terms of army service, which constitutes an important part of their integration, in the past few years, olim joining the IDF represent about a fifth of the general number of soldiers. The majority of these olim come from the Former Soviet Union and Ethiopia.According to data presented, 5,800 ethiopian soldiers served in the army at the end of 2010. In that same year, 2,430 of them had begun their service. The report stated that despite their high motivation to join the IDF, after their recruitment, Ethiopian soldiers tend to experience problems during their services.In 2010, only nine percent of them had gone through professional training and took courses for their military positions.The data also showed that Ethiopians are much less represented than the rest of the population in government roles and the public sector.In local authorities and municipalities, it seems that Ethiopians are more represented than they are in other fields. According to the report, despite investing much in the integration of Ethiopian olim, the Israeli government has never evaluated the effectiveness of these measures, which represents “great waste”.“Improving the situation of the Ethiopian community in Israel in these fields will advance, in the best possible way, their integration into the general Israeli society, both in terms of their socio-economic conditions as well as in their feeling of belonging,” the report stated.The State Comptroller suggested that one in order to bridge the gaps which still exist in the various fields, the issue of integrating Ethiopian olim into Israeli society should be handled by one exclusive body which will “see the big picture” and better