Frontline Club: In the Name of Democracy - Land grabbing and Genocide in Ethiopia

Frontline Club Oslo is hosting a New Frontiers event at Cinemateket i Oslo Thursday the 6th of March:

IN THE NAME OF DEMOCRACY
- LAND GRABBING AND GENOCIDE IN ETHIOPIA

Ethiopia’s dictatorship receives strong international criticism for it’s human rights violations. Notwithstanding, Norway is the only Western country that has signed a bilateral agreement with the Ethiopian intelligence service facilitating forced return of refugees and has several other ties to the regime. We discuss whether there is hope for a democratic breakthrough in Ethiopia – and what Norway can do to influence in this direction.

Abdullahi Hussein presents unique video documentation which is said to document genocide in the Ogaden province. He is now living in exile in Sweden after smuggling the material out of the country. He is taking it to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Human rights activist Obang Metho lives in exile in Canada. He has worked extensively with human rights issues related e.g. to the issue of land grabbing. He is executive director of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia.

The artist and activist, Solveig Syversen, will show clips from her work-in-progress documentary about the Norwegian-Ethiopian re-admission agreement and the Ethiopian diaspora in Norway.

Presentations with film clips will be followed by a panel discussion including Johan Helland – a social anthropologist with extensive experience from developmental research, consultancy and administrative work in Eastern and North-eastern Africa currently eworking at the Christian Michelsens institute in Bergen and Mari Seilskjær – lawyer working for the Norwegian Organization for Asylum Seekers. The Norwegian authorities have been invited to participate. We welcome the audience to take part in these unique opportunity for discussion!

Moderator: Marius von der Fehr, New Frontiers.

www.frontlineclub.no
www.facebook.com/newfrontiersoslo
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Abdullahi Hussein was the president’s adviser and head of the Ogaden TV channel Cakaara News. For a few years he copied the president’s secret video files. Files included the internal meetings where individual officers and soldiers in the regional militia testify arbitrary arrests, torture, murder, extortion and rape. At Filmens Hus he will talk about the horrific circumstances in the Ogaden region, the handling of the evidence, and the process towards the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Part of the material can be watched in the Swedish documentary, Dikaturen fångar, shown on Swedish television, following the Swedish reporters Schibbye and Persson and Abdullahi Hussein in Ogaden.

Obang Metho is an Ethiopian human rights activist who has tirelessly advocated for human rights, justice, freedom and environment, enhanced accountability in politics and peace in Africa for over 10 years. He has briefed leaders and officials at United Nations, the European Parliament, the US Department of State, the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, the World Bank and the Council for Foreign Relations, amongst others. He is currently the leader of Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia.

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