Tadias Magazine
News Update
Published: Wednesday, June 17th, 2015
New York (TADIAS) — The head of Youth Affairs for Ethiopia’s Semayawi (Blue) Party says security forces are responsible for the recent assassination of the party’s parliamentary candidate in the Gojam region.
29-year-old Samuel Awoke, who is said to have challenged last month’s controversial election results in his region, was clubbed and stabbed to death in Debre Markos two days ago, according to media reports.
“Samuel was killed in the Gojam region in the Northwest of the country after being allegedly beaten by security forces,” said Yonatan Tesfaye of the Blue Party in a telephone interview with Radio France Internationale.
Tesfaye said Samuel has been receiving death threats and had written a post on Facebook recently predicting that there will be an attempt on his life. “[They] were calling him and threatening him,” Tesfaye said, “The security forces had beaten him a month ago and they left him thinking that he was dead, unfortunately he was not, and they did the same thing again the day before yesterday.”
Radio France Internationale (RFI) said it tried to reach various government spokesmen, but they were unable to do so. “There are reports that Ethiopian Communication Minister Redwan Hussien said they were trying to figure out who the killers are and the motivation behind it,” the broadcaster reported. “Hussien went on to say that a suspect has been arrested. He also suggested that the attack was sparked by a legal dispute.”
Tesfaye disagreed saying: “Samie was not the first person to pay this sacrifice, we all know that this would happen to any of us so we are not afraid. we will just continue to struggle. They are trying to cover it up everybody knows who killed our friend. They do this all the time. They kill and they appear to search for the killer, but its fake. We know they killed him.”
Tesfaye pointed out that Samuel was a prominent member of their Party. “He did a lot of work in his region Gojam,” he added. They wanted to get rid of him. I think there was an order from high position.”
Listen: Murdered Ethiopian opposition politician received death threats & predicted attempt on his life
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Related:
Ethiopian opposition party says candidate’s murder was politically motivated (Reuters)
Ethiopia Opposition Candidate Dies After Attack in Northwest (Bloomberg)