{"id":244840,"date":"2018-10-18T13:57:23","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T17:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?guid=ff44700a9559ce347efcb771dac4cc74"},"modified":"2019-02-09T04:17:52","modified_gmt":"2019-02-09T09:17:52","slug":"activists-demands-the-immediate-release-of-human-rights-lawyers-henok-aklilu-and-mikael-melak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/244840","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE: The arrest of human rights lawyers Henok Aklilu and Mikael Melak"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: (21 Oct. 2018) It is reported that Henok Aklilu and Mikael Melak have been released today, according to journalist Getu Temesgen.<\/p>\n

The arrest of prominent Ethiopian human rights lawyers Henok Aklilu and Mikael Melak<\/strong><\/p>\n

(19 Oct. 2018) – In an action reminiscent of the TPLF era, the Addis Ababa Police under the command of Acting Mayor Takele Uma has arrested a distinguished Ethiopian human rights lawyer Henok Aklilu and his colleague Mikael Melak on October 17 this week. Their alleged crime: organizing Addis Ababa residents against the unelected acting mayor. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The arrest of the two lawyers is an outrageous act of lawlessness and a renewed attack on human rights in Ethiopia on the part of Mayor Takele Uma and his police department. <\/p>\n

Human rights groups and several prominent Ethiopians have called for their immediate release. <\/p>\n

Amnesty International has issued the following statement<\/a>: <\/p>\n

\u201cThe arrest of Henok and Michael highlight the difficulties human rights defenders continue to face despite the Ethiopian government\u2019s stated commitment to open up space for dissenting voices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two must be released immediately and unconditionally as they are being simply held for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of arresting and harassing human rights defenders and activists, Ethiopian police should work towards ensuring a safe and enabling environment in which defending human rights can be done without fear of reprisals,\u201d said Fisseha Tekle, Amnesty International\u2019s Horn of Africa Researcher.<\/p>\n

VOA:
\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/aKjJz1SxTxo<\/p>\n

DW Amharic
\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/fnywnn-6hLw<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethiopia: Release immediately and unconditionally human rights defender arrested for exercising freedom of expressionAmnesty InternationalThe Ethiopian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release a human rights defender and his friend who …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Human-rights-lawyer-Henok-Melaku.jpg?fit=715%2C518&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-11H2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244840"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245342,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244840\/revisions\/245342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}