ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (By staff reporter)– An American law professor, teaching at the Ethiopian Ministry of Education’s Mekelle University in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, had her contract terminated last week by university officials.

The administration claims “incompetence” was the reason for her termination. But Professor Abigail Salisbury claims that her public voicing of alternative views on the U.S. House of Representative’s Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007 (HR2003) got her fired.

After failing to convince the university’s academic commission that her contract should not be terminated, Professor Salisbury is planning to depart Ethiopia. The firing quickly followed an article she published in “The Jurist,” the online University of Pittsburgh law review journal, in which she described candidly her participation in a Mekelle University Law Faculty forum on HR 2003 .

The 2008 Human Rights Watch report states: “As such unworthy claimants as the leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria wrap themselves in the democracy mantle with scant international objection, the concept of democracy gets cheapened, its human rights component cast aside.” – page 4

“Ethiopian authorities reacted to unexpected opposition wins in the 2005 elections by violently dispersing peaceful demonstrations and detaining most of the opposition leadership.” – page 11

“Ethiopia has been an illustrative beneficiary of this double standard. The government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi arrested thousands of demonstrators protesting against fraud in the 2005 elections and charged 18 journalists with treason. These arrests were part of a broader pattern of repression, including the use of torture, detention, and intimidation of people perceived as political opponents and, more recently, extraordinary brutality in suppressing an insurgency in the Ogaden region and fighting Islamic forces in neighboring Somalia. The US government has expressed dismay about the post-election crackdown, but Ethiopia, a key counterterrorism partner, remains Washington’s biggest aid beneficiary in sub-Saharan Africa. Ethiopia is also among the top African recipients of European Union aid. After the 2005 election violence, the EU, along with the World Bank and the United Kingdom, suspended portions of their direct budget support to Ethiopia, but the UK has since increased its aid” – page 15-16

The report is available at  the BBC and the Human Rights Watch web sites

After two years of stay in prison, human rights activists, Daniel Bekele and Netsanet Demissie have been sentenced to two and a half years prison on Wednesday 26 December.

They are reportedly to be freed since the two activists have served two/third of their sentence. Local newspapers indicated that the presiding judge excluded himself from the verdict saying Daniel and Netsanet were free of charge.

Contrary to the annoucements of that they would walk free in few days, reliable sources revealed that their release could be delayed up to four months by the court.