Activists heading to food workshop charged with terrorism in Ethiopia - IFEX

26.9.15

Activists heading to food workshop charged with terrorism in Ethiopia - IFEX: “Ethiopia should be encouraging debate about its development and food security challenges, not charging people with terrorism for attending a workshop organized by respected international organizations,” said Miges Baumann, deputy director at Bread for All. “These absurd charges should be dropped immediately.”

Omot, of the evangelical Mekane Yesus church in Ethiopia's Gambella region, was an interpreter for the World Bank Inspection Panel's 2014 investigation of a complaint by the Anuak indigenous people alleging widespread forced displacement and other serious human rights violations in relation to a World Bank project in Gambella. He had raised concerns with workshop organizers about increasing threats from Ethiopian security officials in the weeks before his arrest.