Opposition leaders released after hours in police custody

Ethiomedia | January 15, 2008

A high-level CUDP-Kinijit has since last Saturday been on a working tour to southern Ethiopia. Several meetings were held with party supporters until the delegation returned to Addis on Tuesday. Photo shows CUDP-Kinijit leaders Bertukan Mideksa and Engineer Gizachew Shiferaw with Kinijit supporters in one of the towns in southern Ethiopia.

A Kinijit supporter shares his views with the opposition leaders and supporters.

ADDIS ABABA - Two senior Ethiopian opposition leaders who were arrested on Tuesday in Wolaita, 360 km south of Addis, were released after hours in police custody.

Ms. Bertukan Mideksa, vice president of Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP) and senior CUDP executive Gizachew Shiferaw were detained by the Wolaita Police while heading home to Addis after wrapping up party activities in the southern part of the country.

Another CUDP official, Lt. Alemayehu Yeneneh, who was detained with the other delegates, was also released.

The high-level delegation headed by Ms. Bertukan has been out of Addis since Saturday.

CUDP leaders were released in July 2007 from nearly two years of imprisonment after their party made signficant gains at the 2005 polls. The ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, which lost all 23 parliamentary seats in the capital, for instance, declared a state of emergency, and launched a nationwide crackdown bordering on war.

The government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi killed 193 civilian protesters, while rounding up tens of thousands of opposition supporters housed in five concentration camps across the country.

The opposition leaders were trying to pick up pieces and re-build the party that was heavily battered by the government widely believed to have stolen the elections in 2005.