{"id":274652,"date":"2019-05-03T16:29:40","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T20:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CBMiTWh0dHBzOi8vYm9ya2VuYS5jb20vMjAxOS8wNS8wMy9vcGVuLWxldHRlci10by10aGUtcHJpbWUtbWluaXN0ZXItb2YtZXRoaW9waWEv0gEA?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-09-17T11:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:34:18","slug":"pen-ethiopias-solomon-hailemariam-wrote-an-open-letter-to-abiy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/274652","title":{"rendered":"PEN Ethiopia\u2019s Solomon Hailemariam wrote an open letter to Abiy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On 3 May 2019 borkena published an open letter to Ethiopia\u2019s prime minister from Solomon Hailemariam, author and PEN Ethiopia founder, who said he had left the country in 2015 after repeated attacks on himself and the writers\u2019 organization.<\/p>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-354823\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Justice-ethiopia.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"PEN Ethiopia\u2019s Solomon Hailemariam wrote an open letter to Abiy\" \/>\n<p>The letter form matters. Exile writers testing whether Abiy Ahmed\u2019s early openings included literary freedom, not only party reshuffles, put accountability in public where communiqu\u00e9s could not hide it.<\/p>\n<p>PEN cases are a thermometer for civic space. When novelists and essayists are hunted, the problem is not hurt feelings. It is state tolerance for intimidation.<\/p>\n<p>Kept as rights\/media archive, the open letter is a named demand from Ethiopia\u2019s literary world to a government that still prefers applause abroad to protection at home.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/borkena.com\/2019\/05\/03\/open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-of-ethiopia\/\">borkena<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia&nbsp;&nbsp;borkena.comSolomon Hailemariam, author and founder of PEN Ethiopia, had to leave his homeland Ethiopia in 2015, after repeated attacks on himself and the organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":354823,"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-274652","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\/2021\/03\/Justice-ethiopia.jpg?fit=1023%2C583&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-19rS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274652","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\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274652"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":602519,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274652\/revisions\/602519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}