Esubalew Birhanie has been imprisoned in Ethiopia on allegations that he has links to a militia banned by the government. Mr. Birhanie says he's being persecuted for comments he made at a meeting in Toronto six years ago.Supplied
A Canadian man has suffered severe beatings at the hands of Ethiopian police who have imprisoned him for more than five months on allegations that he supported a banned militia, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission says.
The man, 39-year-old Esubalew Birhanie, is a ground technician at Toronto’s Pearson airport. He was visiting family in Ethiopia when he was pulled off an airplane last October. Police are accusing him of links to Fano, an ethnic-based militia in Ethiopia’s Amhara region that has been banned by the government.
In an interview in prison, Mr. Birhanie said the police are persecuting him for comments he made at a meeting in Toronto six years ago.
“The Constitution of Canada allows me to speak freely as a citizen,” he told The Globe and Mail. “To be judged in Ethiopia for what I said in Canada is wrong.”
He and his supporters are concerned that the Ethiopian government is seeking to control the behaviour of Ethiopian-Canadians by monitoring and policing their comments in Canada.
A nine-page report by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission says it investigated the case and concluded that the Canadian man was “beaten by officers, resulting in significant physical injuries to his waist and ribs.”
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The report has not been publicly released but was obtained by The Globe after it was shared with Mr. Birhanie’s family and lawyers this week.
The commission is calling for a full criminal investigation into the Ethiopian police who perpetrated the abuse. It also recommends compensation be paid to Mr. Birhanie for the “physical and psychological trauma” he suffered.
The Toronto man says he was beaten severely and tortured by the police. “They stomped on my neck and my body to break me into confessing what they wanted to hear,” he said.
“I am worried about losing my livelihood. I’m afraid that my case will be prolonged in a broken justice system that disregards human rights.”
Mr. Birhanie appeared in a federal court Tuesday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to pursue his challenge to the criminal charges. Wearing a dark yellow uniform and handcuffed to a fellow prisoner, he stumbled as he was pushed into a dimly lit courtroom by heavily armed guards. His two sisters, sitting in the public gallery, wept when they saw him.
In the courtroom, judges read his complaint that he was beaten by police to force him to confess. The case was adjourned to a future date.
Mr. Birhanie travelled to Ethiopia last August to visit family. On Oct. 4, he says, he boarded a Toronto-bound flight at Addis Ababa airport to return home, but a police officer pulled him off the plane and took him to a notorious detention centre, where he was severely beaten. He says the police offered to release him for a bribe of about $23,000.
The police, he says, have repeatedly shown him a video of a meeting sponsored by the Ethiopian government in Toronto in 2020, at which he described the plight of Amhara people who were killed or displaced in Ethiopia’s Oromia region.
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He has been charged with inciting terrorism and propagating disinformation and hate speech, with the 2020 video and social-media posts cited as evidence. He denies the charges and says the social-media accounts do not belong to him.
Ethiopian authorities have often used anti-terrorism laws as a pretext to prosecute and imprison dissidents and journalists, according to multiple reports by human-rights groups in recent years.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, shortly after releasing some political prisoners and reaching a peace deal with neighbouring Eritrea. But since then, his government has waged a brutal two-year war in northern Ethiopia, his military has been accused of war crimes and ethnic cleansing, and his police have arrested large numbers of journalists, human-rights defenders and opposition figures.
A spokesperson for Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, Nebiat Getachew, said he was unaware of the case of the imprisoned Canadian. A police spokesperson in Addis Ababa said the case was outside the city’s jurisdiction. Mr. Abiy’s press secretary, Billene Seyoum, did not reply to repeated messages from The Globe seeking comment on the case.
Mr. Birhanie said the Canadian embassy in Addis Ababa sent officials to assist him in detention and sought to halt the beatings by police. He was later transferred to Kilinto prison, on the outskirts of the capital, where political prisoners and journalists are often held.
“Global Affairs Canada is aware of a Canadian citizen detained in Ethiopia,” said Thida Ith, a spokesperson for the department.
“Canadian officials are providing consular assistance and are in contact with local authorities,” she said. “Due to privacy considerations, no further information can be disclosed.”
In a letter to Global Affairs after he was pulled off the plane, Mr. Birhanie’s family said his detention has caused hardship, prolonged uncertainty and emotional distress for his family.
“We are very stressed about his ordeal,” one of his cousins in Canada told The Globe. “He travels every year to visit his family, and we never expected that something like this could happen to him.”
The Globe is not identifying the cousin out of concern for potential retaliation by Ethiopian authorities.
With reporting by a Globe and Mail freelancer in Addis Ababa whose name is being withheld from publication for safety reasons.