COUNCILLORS
have unanimously passed a motion calling on the UK government to do more to
secure the release of a Holloway man who has been held on death row in Ethiopia
for two years.
Andy Tsege, a 61-year-old British citizen, was kidnapped and
rendered to Ethiopia by forces of that country in June 2014. He remains held
there under a sentence of death imposed in absentia in 2009 in relation to his
political opposition to the Ethiopian government.
A motion passed at last Thursday’s full council meeting, submitted
by Clerkenwell councillors Alice Donovan and James Court, expressed “great
concern and dismay” over the detention kidnapping and illegal rendition of Mr
Tsege, adding: “The council wishes to remind the Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs, of the series of unlawful acts perpetrated against Mr
Tsege by a Foreign State.
“This council is very concerned by the Ethiopian government’s
continuing use of the country’s legislative and judicial framework to stifle
dissent and convict political opponents, including Mr Tsege, in politically
motivated trials […] and regrets that the government has not yet urged the
Ethiopian government to release Mr Tsege’s.”
Town Hall leader Richard Watts will now write to foreign secretary
Phillip Hammond to urge him to make further representations to the Ethiopian
government calling for Mr Tsege’s release.
The Ethiopian freedom fighter’s children Menabe, nine, her twin
brother Yilak and sister Helawit, 16, and mother Yemi Hailemariam live in
Clerkenwell. They are continuing their campaign for Mr Tsege’s release.
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