In repressive Ethiopia, new ‘Blue Party’ struggles to offer a choice – The Christian Science Monitor

By William Davison, Correspondent / November 21, 2013 -

Yet Ethiopia’s ruling coalition seems intent on maintaining a tight grip on power until its project to transform Africa’s second-most populous nation into a middle-income country is complete.

That authoritarian control makes any opposition difficult – though of late a group called the Blue Party, made up of young Ethiopians who describe themselves as progressive, have attempted to move, if not shake, the nation’s politics in ways not seen here for a decade or more.

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Last week the Blue Party tried to organize a protest outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Addis Ababa, feeding off widespread public outcry over the treatment of Ethiopian

Thousands protested at the Saudi Embassy in London

November 18, 2013

Prophet Muhammad told his followers to leave for Axum (ancient Ethiopia), where “a king rules without injustice, a land of truthfulness-until God leads us to a way out of our difficulty.” This happened at the early days of Islam, when the Quraysh intensified persecuting early converts of Islam in Mecca; this marked the first hijraah. Today Ethiopians who gave sanctuary to the followers of the Prophet Muhammad are being killed, raped, beaten, brutally abused and more than 25,000 are imprisoned in Saudi Arabia.

In protest to this brutality inflicted on innocent Ethiopians living and working in the Kingdom nearly 5 thousand Ethiopians living in the United Kingdom held a massive vigil outside the Embassy of Saudi Arabia on Curzon Street London W1. The huge turnout which has not been seen for years has stunned the police who were not prepared for it.

Wounded in Addis, finished off in Riyadh

November 17, 2013

by Ephrem Madebo, ebini23@yahoo.com

From China to Ethiopia and from Belarus to Saudi Arabia, there is no shortage of repressive regimes in the world. In general, repressive societies are defined as exerting pervasive state control over daily life, banning free speech and political opposition, and practicing severe human rights violations. All of these attributes describe the Ethiopian regime from head to toe, but the TPLF regime in Ethiopia has many more attributes that makes it the worst of the worst. Oppressive regimes do not hate their country, yet the Ethiopian regime does. Even though oppressive regimes kill their citizens for a variety of reasons, they don’t kill out of hatred. The TPLF regime in Ethiopia hunts and kills people that it really hates. Almost all countries of the world,