June 8, 2014
Who is afraid of Eskinder Nega, Reeyout Alemu, Woubshet Taye, Zone Nine bloggers…?
The “dean” of independent Ethiopian journalists and blogger extraordinaire, Eskinder Nega, is serving an 18 year sentence for blogging. The late Meles Zenawi personally ordered Eskinder’s arrest and even determined his sentence. Meles Zenawi feared and hated Eskinder Nega more than any other journalist in Ethiopia. Meles feared Eskinder for the same illogical reason elephants “fear” mice.
In a recent “open letter” from prison to his eight year-old son Nafkot, Eskinder wrote, “ I have reluctantly become an absent father because I ache for what the French in the late 18th Century expressed in three simple words: liberté, egalité, fraternité.” Eskinder is a blogger for liberty, equality and brotherhood. That is why he is my personal hero!
