Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu

The Honorable Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Mister
The Republic of Israel
3 Kaplan St. Hakirya
Jerusalem 91950

Dear Prime Minister:

As freedom and peace loving Ethiopians residing all over the world, we are terrified to find out that on January 10, 2012, the Israeli Knesset amended the 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law that grants authorities to detain and deport be it genuine or otherwise political asylum seekers from Israel under the pretext of “infiltration”. The Republic of Israel, whom you are the Prime Mister, is a model to the world where freedom and democracy enshrined; we believe will refrain from giving protection to those refugees whose lives will be on death row. We appeal to Your Honorable Prime Minister, on behalf of those Ethiopians who are political refugees seeking asylum in Israel, either to grant them asylum, if not provide them with protection until the United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) arranges a third country to move to.

Without any question, deporting the asylees to Ethiopia is tantamount to condemning them to be tortured and executed by the dictatorial minority regime of Meles Zenawi.

To that effect, Mr. Zenawi and his regime will in the future be brought to International Criminal Court (ICC) to face justice for the crimes committed: To mention a few:

• For the massacre of over 70 Sidamas in Sidamo in early 2001.
• For the genocide of over 720 Anuaks in 2003.
• For the massacre of 193 innocent Citizens after 2005 general election.
• For burning alive of thousands of Ogaden Somali Ethiopians.
• For the killing, torture and disappearance of thousands of Oromos, Amharas and Afars,
• For forced off land farmers without compensation in order to lease to Arabs, Indians, Pakistani, Chinese etc nationals on the pretext of development; and least but not last;
• For the death by starvation of citizens of Ethiopia for the last 21 years.

Your Honorable Prime Minister

Notwithstanding the above mentioned atrocities committed by the despotic regime of Meles Zenawi, it became routine and a day-to-day occurrence that the people of Ethiopia are subjected to, and not limited to a few of the following:

Educators, human right activists, opposition political leaders, journalists, students, farmers and spiritual leaders are subjected to extreme suffering in the form of torture, imprisonment, harassment and disappearing over-night.

The regime over-night drafted and implemented a vague but misuse-able “the so-called anti-terrorist law” in order to penalize dissent, to curb freedom of speech, free media and to crack down journalists and members the opposition.

The regime kept on leasing or selling farm lands forcedly evicting thousands of farmers from their ancestral and inherited land to make way for foreign investors.

A few days ago, passed a law to clamp down on internet and skype users; and any user will face up to 15 years jail term.

Ethiopian refugees, who were forcibly repatriated from the Sudan and Djibouti, are consistently disappearing without a trance while they were in prison under the regimes custody.

We Ethiopians, therefore appeal to your government, to give every consideration in order to protect those Ethiopian asylum seekers. If they are deported back to Ethiopia we can assure you that they will be labeled as traitors, terrorists and citizens who committed treason. Knowing very well the behavior of the regime, if deported they will definitive be tortured, and if lucky imprisoned God knows for how long.

We believe and hope that our appeal will receive your positive decision and action.

Best regards,
Ethiopians from all over the world

CC:

To: Shimon Peres, President, the Republic State of Israel
To: United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees
To: Amnesty International
To: Human Rights Watch
To: United Christian for Israel
To: BBC, DW, ABC, NBC, NPR, New York Times, AFP, Reuter, ECADF, ESAT, SMNE, Addis Dimtse, Ethiomedia, Quatero and Ethiopian websites