Today, please join your colleagues at the CIVICUS World Assembly in showing your solidarity for journalist, civil society activist and blogger Eskinder Nega, who is currently in jail in Ethiopia simply for expressing his fundamental rights of free speech.
In February 2011 Eskinder was detained and warned by the Ethiopian authorities for writing an article in which he called on security forces not to shoot unarmed protesters should democracy protests similar to those of the Arab Spring erupt in Ethiopia.
Eskinder was arrested in September 2011 after he published an article criticising the manner in which the government uses its 2009 anti-terrorism law to restrict the basic freedoms of Ethiopians. He was charged under anti-terrorism laws in November 2011.
In June 2012 Eskinder was found guilty of links with a terrorist group, and on 13 July 2012 he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for “attempting to incite violence by posting articles online.”
Eskinder has long been a victim of judicial persecution, having been arrested along with his wife in November 2005 and imprisoned for 17 months for reporting on demonstrations that followed controversial elections in Ethiopia.
We ask all our members, partners and stakeholders to join with delegates at the 2012 CIVICUS World Assembly in Montreal, Canada on Friday 7 September to show your support for and solidarity with Nasrin by sharing this information on your websites and Facebook pages, and by tweeting as follows:
Support Eskinder Nega: 18 years for inciting violence by posting articles online in Ethiopia: now a prisoner of conscience #freeEskinderNega
Thank you
More information: http://www.civicus.org/en/get-involved/take-action/civil-society-behind-bars/752-take-action-eskinder-nega
