Wife of Jawar Mohammed attempts to make a case that his arrest is not because of a crime but for political reasons. Two US Senators seem to have nodded to the claim.
borkena
August 26, 2020
In an interview with Fox9, Jawar Mohammed’s wife Arfasse Gemeda said her husband is a “political prisoner.” “He hasn’t committed any crimes, he’s a political prisoner,” she told Fox9. She is not alone; many of his radical ethnic Oromo nationalists believe so.
And some US politicians seem to have purchased the narrative.
Two Minnesota senators, Amy Klobuchar, and Tina Smith have sent a joint letter to the United States’ Department of State advocating for Jawar Mohammed and his friend who are arrested in Ethiopia in connection with a massacre that claimed hundreds of lives.
Fox9 quoted Sen. Smith as saying “We are calling on the State Department to make sure these Minnesotans, their human and legal rights are protected, but also that the State Department moves to try and quell the violence and the suppression of human rights and violation of human rights that’s happening in Ethiopia.”
In December 2019, the radical ethnic Oromo activist and owner of Oromia Media Network announced that he has joined the Oromo Federalist Congress party claiming that he has renounced his US citizenship for which the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia requested proof of it.
Amid Minnesotan senators’ campaign for the “freedom” of Jawar Mohammed and his friend who is said to be an IT professional who went to Ethiopia to help expand Oromia Media Network, questions are being raised if Jawar has truly renounced his U.S. citizenship. Some say his name is not in the list of people who renounced their US citizenship in 2018 and 2019.
Ethiopian government linked him to the massacre of hundreds of civilians — which the regional state admitted that it was a coordinated one with support from some in the government structure — in the Oromo region of Ethiopia in the days following the assassination of Hachalu Hundessa who appeared on Oromo Media Network a week or so before his death.
In October 2019, at least 90 people were massacred in the Oromo region after Jawar Mohammed wrote a Facebook status update claiming that the government has removed his security details. The government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had been criticized for letting Jawar cause violence that claimed the lives of innocent people — mostly non-Oromo in the region.
For a considerable number of Ethiopians, he is a cold-blooded criminal with support from actors in the Arabian Gulf region.
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