ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said the arrest of the country’s opposition leader was not a political decision, arguing the authorities were left with no other choice.

Authorities arrested and sentenced Birtukan Midekssa to life in prison in January after she reportedly said she never expressed remorse to obtain a pardon in 2007. She was given three days to deny or confirm the reports.

“We were put in an almost impossible situation politically and legally. The law says if a pardon is given under false pretenses it has to be annulled,” Meles told journalists late Friday. Read More.

Related: Birtukan Mideksa – The Judge Who Refused to Say Sorry
The Independent, U.K.
By Daniel Howden
Tuesday, 3 February 2009

Birtukan Mideksa has been sentenced to life in prison. She spends her days and nights in solitary confinement in a two-metre by two-metre cell. She cannot leave it to see daylight or even to receive visitors. Previous inmates say the prison is often unbearably hot.

Her crime: refusing to say sorry. The judge, aged 34, is the head of Ethiopia’s most popular political party, the only female leader of a main opposition party in Africa.

The government in Addis Ababa had her arrested on 28 December, claiming she had violated the terms of an earlier pardon.

Her previous release in 2007, which came after serving two years in prison, was conditional on her signing an apology for taking part in protests against fixed elections.

In November, the woman who is becoming a democratic icon in Ethiopia told an audience in Sweden that she had not asked for a pardon. On returning to Ethiopia it was demanded that she sign further apologies and, when she refused, she was re-arrested. The Ministry of Justice then issued a statement reimposing her life sentence. Read more.

Ethiopian Opposition Leader Mideksa Ends Prison Hunger Strike
VOA
By Peter Heinlein
Addis Ababa
11 January 2009

A leading Ethiopian opposition politician, who was imprisoned for life last month after a dispute with the government, has ended a hunger strike and told relatives she wants to begin legal proceedings to win her freedom.

The leader of Ethiopia’s Unity for Democracy and Justice Party, Birtukan Mideksa, has called off the fast she began December 29, when she was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in Addis Ababa’s Kaliti prison.

Birtukan’s mother Almaz Gebregziabher told VOA her daughter had eaten the soup and Ethiopian bread (injera) she had brought to the prison Saturday and Sunday.

In an interview at her home, Almaz said Birtukan told her she had decided to fight the court ‘s move to revoke the pardon she received in 2007 – nearly two years after she and dozens of other opposition politicians were arrested in the wake of Ethiopia’s disputed 2005 election, and convicted of treason. They had been given life terms, then pardoned after signing a document effectively admitting their guilt and apologizing.

But during a visit to Sweden late last year, Birtukan denied having asked for a pardon, then refused a demand by the government to retract her statement.

Speaking in Amharic, Almaz expressed tearful frustration at her daughter’s action, which leaves her to care for Birtukan’s three-year old daughter.

Almaz also had strong words for government officials, whom she said had violated her daughter’s constitutional rights.

She said the government promised freedom of speech, democracy – she talked and ended up in jail.

Birtukan, a lawyer and former judge, is the first woman to head a major Ethiopian political party.

Her imprisonment changes Ethiopia’s political landscape a year and a half before the next scheduled parliamentary elections. Her Unity for Democracy and Justice is an outgrowth of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, which was a major force in the disputed 2005 elections.

She was widely seen as the party’s most charismatic figure and a prime minister hopeful, with potential for wide support among members of Ethiopia’s two largest ethnic groups, Oromos and Amharas.

Government spokesman Bereket Simon earlier told VOA politics had nothing to do with the court order sending Birtukan back to prison. He said it was a simple matter of the judge in the case enforcing the law, and suggested the government has no interest in any further legal proceedings on the issue.
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Jailed Ethiopian Opposition Leader Mideksa on Hunger Strike

Bloomberg
January 8, 2009

By Jason McLure

Ethiopia’s leading opposition politician is in her 10th day of a hunger strike after she was jailed for life on Dec. 29 following a dispute with the government, according to her mother.

Birtukan Mideksa, 34, has been taking only juice and water and is being held in solitary confinement in a windowless 3-meter by 4-meter (10-foot by 13-foot) cell in Ethiopia’s Kaliti prison, said her mother, Almaz Gebregziabhere, who visited her in prison yesterday.

“I didn’t recognize her because of how she’s changed,” said Gebregziabhere, 72, in an interview today at her home in Addis Ababa. “I begged her for the sake of her daughter to eat, but she didn’t.”

Prison officials have banned all visitors except Gebregziabhere and Mideksa’s 3-year-old daughter, Halle, from visiting her, Gebregziabhere said. Gebregziabhere, speaking in Amharic through a translator, said the family had been unable to hire a lawyer for Mideksa because those contacted on her behalf have turned her down as a client, fearing government reprisals.

Mideksa, a leader of the now-dissolved Coalition for Unity and Democracy party, was first jailed after Ethiopia’s 2005 elections, in which the CUD claimed victory. She and dozens of other opposition leaders were sentenced to life in prison, though they were released in 2007 after a pardon agreement with the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

She was re-arrested Dec. 29 after she rejected government demands that she make a public statement saying she had formally requested the original pardon.

‘Humane Condition’

Bereket Simon, an adviser to Zenawi, said he wasn’t aware of Mideksa’s fast.

“We have a prison system whereby we hold prisoners in a humane condition,” Simon said. “This is a case where she has said that she didn’t ask for pardon and the decision of the judiciary is being applied. At this point, I don’t think it requires intervention by lawyers.” Read more.
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US concern over Birtukan Midekssa’s arrest
AFP
Dec 31, 2008

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — The US embassy in Addis Ababa on Wednesday voiced concern over the fate of an opposition leader who was jailed after her pardon from a life sentence was revoked.

Birtukan Midekssa, head of the Unity for Democracy Justice party, irked the regime when she reportedly claimed during a recent visit to Europe that she had never voiced remorse or acknowledged any mistake to obtain her pardon in 2007.

“The United States is concerned about the government of Ethiopia’s arrest of Unity for Democracy and Justice Party leader Birtukan Midekssa,” the embassy’s information officer Darragh Paradiso told AFP.

“We are particularly concerned by reports that Birtukan’s pardon has been revoked and she has begun a life sentence in prison.”

The 35-year-old woman, who was detained with dozens of opposition figures and supporters in the aftermath of disputed 2005 elections, was last week given a three-day ultimatum by the authorities to confirm or deny the reports. Read More.

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Bloomberg.com
Ethiopian Police Re-Arrest Opposition Leader Mideksa
December 29, 2008

By Jason McLure

(Corrects attribution in sixth paragraph.)

Ethiopian federal police re-arrested opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa a year after she was released on a pardon following her arrest during the country’s disputed 2005 elections.

Mideksa, a leader of the now-dissolved Coalition for Unity and Democracy, was taken into custody today, said Temesgen Zewde, a lawmaker, who is a member of Mideksa’s new party, Unity for Democracy and Justice.

“She has been arrested,” Zewde said in an interview in the capital, Addis Ababa. “No charges have been made public yet. We don’t know exactly where she is being held.”

Mideksa was arrested after refusing to acknowledge that she had requested a pardon that led to her release from jail in July 2007, said Bereket Simon, a spokesman for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. She and dozens of other opposition leaders were initially jailed following the 2005 elections and sentenced to life in prison following a May 2007 trial on treason charges. Read More.