{"id":69379,"date":"2016-05-07T01:30:26","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T23:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/ethiopia-release-opposition-politician-held-for-facebook-posts\/"},"modified":"2016-05-07T01:30:26","modified_gmt":"2016-05-06T23:30:26","slug":"ethiopia-release-opposition-politician-held-for-facebook-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/ethiopia-release-opposition-politician-held-for-facebook-posts\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia: Release opposition politician held for Facebook posts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span dir=\"ltr\"> LONDON, United Kingdom, May 6, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ &#8212; <\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Ethiopian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release a prominent opposition politician facing a possible death sentence on trumped-up terrorism charges over comments he posted on Facebook, said Amnesty International.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>Yonatan Tesfaye, the spokesman of the opposition Semayawi (Blue) party, was arbitrarily arrested in December 2015 and held in lengthy pre-trial detention for comments he posted on Facebook. The government says his posts against a government plan to extend the capital\u2019s administrative authority to the Oromia region were in pursuit of the objectives of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which it considers a terrorist organisation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Ethiopian authorities have increasingly labelled all opposition to them as terrorism. Yonatan Tesfaye spoke up against a possible land grab in Oromia, which is not a crime and is certainly not terrorism,\u201d said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International\u2019s Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe and many others held under similar circumstances should be immediately and unconditionally released.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yonatan Tesfaye was arbitrarily arrested in December 2015 and held without charge for months on end. It was not until 4 May 2016 that he was charged with \u201cincitement, planning, preparation, conspiracy and attempt\u201d to commit a terrorist act. The state prosecutor charged that Yonatan Tesfaye\u2019s remarks were in pursuit of the OLF\u2019s objectives.\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYonatan Tesfaye has no demonstrated links to the OLF. His arrest is just another example of government overreach in the application of its seriously flawed anti-terrorism law. This law is once again being used as a pretext to quash dissent,\u201d said Muthoni Wanyeki.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Ethiopian authorities should also promptly, impartially, thoroughly and transparently investigate claims that he may have been tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention at the Maekelawi Prison, a jail notorious for its widespread use of torture.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON, United Kingdom, May 6, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ &#8212; The Ethiopian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release a prominent opposition politician facing a possible death sentence on trumped-up terrorism charges over comments he posted on Facebook, said Amnesty International. Yonatan Tesfaye, the spokesman of the opposition Semayawi (Blue) party, was arbitrarily arrested in December [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-69379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}