Ginbot 7 Press Release
In the twenty one years of the TPLF rule, the Ethiopian people and the world at large have witnessed mass killings, targeted killings, and indiscriminate killings of the young, old, women and children as young as 8 years old. In 2005, the mass killing in Ethiopia reached its climax when special security forces under the direct order from the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi savagely killed over 200 people as the world watched quietly. When Deputy PM Haile Mariam Desalegn took the oath of office and promised to walk on the same path as his predecessor, many Ethiopians lowered their expectation of witnessing a free, just and democratic Ethiopia in their life time.
In just a little over a month in office, PM Haile Mariam Desalegn has kept his promise of staying the course of his predecessor in gunning down peaceful demonstrators on the streets of Ethiopian cities. On Sunday, October 21, 2012, Haile Mariam Desalgen mercilessly took the lives of his first four victims in a standoff that started inside a Holy Mosque in the Amhara zone. Two of his young victims were frog marched by security forces and shot execution style at the nearby police station while the other two were shot and killed inside the Mosque compound. According to reliable local sources, there are many people who are seriously wounded and the death toll may increase by two fold.
Ginbot 7, Movement for Justice, Freedom and Democracy categorically denounces the barbaric killing of innocent civilians and holds Haile Mariam Desalegn and his associates accountable for the lives lost. Ginbot 7 acknowledges that the Muslim community in Ethiopia has been waging a legitimate struggle in Ethiopia for the past 11 months. The demands are simple and crystal clear – they have asked the regime for freedom of worship and for the right to elect their religious leaders in their own way and place of their own choosing. These rights are protected by the Ethiopian constitution which the regime is obligated to respect.
Ginbot 7 urges Ethiopians inside and outside of Ethiopia to stand together with our Muslim brothers and sisters in this difficult time. Ethiopians of Muslim and Christian faith must stand together as a community to continue the struggle for freedom, justice, democracy and equality understanding and believing that we live in the context of each other, and acknowledging that the source of our freedom is our collective struggle.
We ask that donor nations and international organizations get their act together and start holding the brutal regime in Ethiopia accountable for its heinous crimes and its wanton disregard for the sanctity of life. All civilized nations should strongly condemn this act of terror against the Muslim community in their place of worship.
In Solidarity!
Askale Dama
October 23, 2012 at 6:54 pm
The Muslim democratic movement is challenging us non-muslims to respond urgently, practically, and concretely. Their demands are universal Ethiopian democratic demands. Their demand includes [1] freedom of conscience and religion, [2] freedom of association and the right of peaceful assembly, [3] free election and the right to choose one’s own representative, [4] the right have a govrnment that behaves according to the law, [5] the spraration of the state and religion, [6] equal protection under the law, [7] freedom of speech and press, and freedom of movement. These are essentially the demands of the national opposition and the national democratic movement.
It is hard to comprehend that the various allainces and coalitions are not actually collaborating and coordinating with our Muslim kins. We non-Muslim democrats demand that opposition organizations move urgently to build collaborative work at all levels and location not only to support our Muslim kins but to support and move our own struggle for freedom. There needs to be urgent contacts, meetings, discussions, dialogue and collaborative strategic activities.
In this regard, the G7 is to be hailed for the initiative it is taking.
menen
October 23, 2012 at 12:25 pm
According to you we all should give up and let the autocrat do whatever they wish. Selling our land to India and Arabs, and take our resources on the name of we been in “Meda” whatever that is.
We are the oldest democracy by any account if you look back before woyanes came to our land. Muslims and Christians lived together peacefully even at times mixed marriage from Emperor Haileslasie to Mengistu, the so called Albanian communist tigray separatist woyane came we lost our land for first time in Ethiopian history. Shame on tigray who support and don’t stand up against this regime. More than 12 million Ethiopians are starving, our regional resources are taken in to private account of the tigray junta. Tell me where did they get the money from I didn’t know there is a diamond mine in tigray mountains I can’t wait to hear how they accumulate the wealth it’s open book for anyone how that money came from. Someone who came with barley a shoe on his feet came to Addis suddenly have in few years all the wealth of the nation taken and built his private paradise. I guess they have not learn from history not only in our country but it’s evident in any nation it’ll be the fall of tigray people having a blind faith on the current proxy power. It’ll be soon your down fall I’m happy to sit and watch from a distance the stinky tigray retreat to their mountain and isolated by the rest of Ethiopians for what they have done.
They should and all of us should fight against this Ethiopian regime and if peaceful protest doesn’t work take a major and believe in your unity and for what you stand for the truth and for our nation, take down tigre regime out of our country.
God Be with all of us in the fight for our country unity and progress!