The Ethiopian government arrested Dr. Berhanu Nega and six other leaders of the Ethiopian political opposition (CUD) after a protest over election irregularities on 1 November, 2005 in which 46 people were killed, and hundreds were wounded. Dr. Nega and his colleagues are being held on charges of treason, which is punishable by death under Ethiopian law. Amnesty International regards them as “Prisoners of conscience, arrested solely for the non-violent expression of their political beliefs.”
Dr. Nega received his Ph.D, from The New School for Social Research in 1991. He is a leading member of the CUD, Ethiopia’s main opposition party. He is Mayor of Addis Ababa, has served as president of the Ethiopian Economic Association, founded the Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute, and served as a consultant for the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
He is part of a group trying to bring democracy to his country. We are trying to help him do just that by becoming free again.
Interested readers should go to www.freenega.org or www.savenega.net to find out how they can help.
Dr. Nega is a remarkable man. Once he had finished his Ph.D in the US, he could have stayed in America and lead the quiet life of a professor. But he went home to try to make a difference to his country, and now he has spent over a year in jail for his trouble. He has endured hungers strikes and heart complications, and still actively fighting the repressive Ethiopian regime, albeit from a cell. His human rights are being violated as I write this.
I've been involved with this campaign since it started (the New School is where I did my degree) in 2005. It's sad Dr. Nega is still incarcerated, but now there are a few things you can do, if you like: