By Sonia Verma | The Globe and Mail
When Daniel Bekele, an Ethiopian lawyer, takes the stage at a Human Rights Watch dinner Friday in Toronto honouring his bravery, he will give a speech but he won’t tell his story.
He fears his government will send him back to the same prison from which he has just been released if he reveals too much about his ordeal.
“In my country I know how every word would be interpreted, so when you ask me a question about what happened and I try to answer it, my mind is also thinking how every word I say could possibly be interpreted in a hundred and one ways. So, unfortunately, I can’t speak freely,” Mr. Bekele explained in an interview with The Globe and Mail.
Mr. Bekele, 42, was among an estimated 30,000 civil-society leaders, journalists and politicians arrested in the wake of Ethiopia’s disputed 2005 election, in which the opposition won an unprecedented number of parliamentary seats but failed to topple Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
The opposition claimed the vote had been rigged, as did a team of European Union election observers. A parliamentary inquiry concluded that nearly 200 civilians were killed in a subsequent government crackdown on the opposition.
Mr. Bekele was charged with inciting violence against the government, punishable by life in prison or death.
A human-rights lawyer who had led election-monitoring efforts, he refused to sign a letter of apology, choosing instead to go to trial to test the rule of law.
He was convicted and spent 21/2 years in prison before being released by presidential pardon.
Fearing repercussions when he learned Human Rights Watch was honouring him with an award, he requested his name not be published until he and his family had left the country.
Birtukan Medekssa, an Ethiopian opposition politician who was also jailed in 2005 and subsequently released was rearrested last year after reports suggested she publicized certain conditions of her release.
“For this reason I find it difficult to go into this story of my arrest, what I was accused of and what I did to defend myself,” said Mr. Bekele, a husband and father of two.
He hopes his silence will serve to underscore the dangers still faced by human-rights advocates who are continuing to press for change in Ethiopia in the run-up to a new round of parliamentary elections in May.
“The challenge is that there is still a huge mismatch between what the constitution says and the reality on the ground,” Mr. Bekele said.
He is currently completing a PhD at Oxford University, but eventually plans to return to Ethiopia to continue his work: “I have every intention of going back and that’s why I have to be so careful,” he said.
“I need to continue to do this. Somebody needs to do this job.”