Die-hard advocate of the right to free expression and father of American democracy Thomas Jefferson once said that if he were forced to decide "if we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, [he] would not hesitate to prefer the latter." The notion of a government's silencing of the press led the drafter of the Declaration of Independence to subsequently declare "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
What compels Carpe Diem Ethiopia to cite a slave-owning Virginian who in 1776 and at 33 years of age breathed words that Ethiopia's rulers can never bring themselves to utter in 2006? Frezer Negash. Her release from jail is cause for all of us to celebrate but this should not obscure the very criminal act of incarcerating her in the first place. We are incensed over Anthony Mitchell's expulsion, the jailing of Ethiopian journalists, and the consequence of these draconian measures to the freedom of thought and expression in Ethiopia.
And by the way, what image is Ethiopia upholding? Aren't millions dying of hunger? Didn't you shoot kids in broad daylight? What exactly did Frezer and Anthony say or write that deserved the EPRDF's wrath?
What tarnishes a nation's image are not reports filed by cyber dissenters or foreign correspondents. What does irreparable harm to Ethiopia's image is your brutal quashing of a people's vote; and what makes us shudder is your failure to declare, for example, an immediate end (yes, immediate) to the plight of Ethiopia women who walk around with untreated obstetric fistula. Don't you understand how horrible it is for more than two million Ethiopian women to exist in that condition simply because they have no access to a cheap uncomplicated medical procedure? Don't you folks have mothers, sisters, daughters?
