Kenya: My 49 Days in Ethiopian Police Cells – Yassin Juma

09/14/2020 Ethiopia, Health



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I was in hell for 49 days. ”Those are the words Kenyan journalist Collins Juma Osemo, alias Yassin Juma, used to sum up his arrest and detention in Ethiopia.

The experience still haunts him, six days after he landed in Kenya after being released.

In an interview with the Sunday Nation at his Nairobi home on Saturday, the journalist, who was arrested moments after Oromia musician Hachalu Hundessa’s murder in July, said he wants answers from the Ethiopian government about why he was detained for almost two months. . about fabricated accusations.

Juma says he went to Ethiopia after a ban was lifted prohibiting him from setting foot in the country in August last year and returned to the country again in January this year to cover Ethiopian Christmas, which is celebrated in January according to with their orthodox practices. .

He was banned from traveling to Ethiopia in 2009 after the broadcast of his television report on the Kenyan-Ethiopian tensions rubbed Addis Ababa the wrong way.

During his trip there in January this year, he says he was also hired by the British broadcaster Sky News to film a documentary under their Horn24 Media Company.

Positive stories

“I was there to make positive stories about Ethiopia when we were arrested while covering the demonstration of the opposition politician Jawar Mohamed. I was never officially charged during the 49 days I was incarcerated. There were only proposed charges that ultimately did not go to court.”

For 49 days, the police kept saying that they were still investigating the matter and that they needed more time. In the end, the Attorney General issued a statement and said that the arrest was unfair and the detention illegal due to the language barrier between Juma and his accusers. He can barely speak Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia.

According to Juma, the police later claimed that his arrest was due to an identity mistake, “but they kept me inside for 49 days.”

He said he was classified as a political detainee and charged with incitement and participation in violence, conspiring to create ethnic violence, and conspiring to assassinate top officials of the Ethiopian ruling party.

“I shared my cell with all the opposition political leaders who had been previously detained. Most of them are still detained there,” he said.

After his arrest, Juma says he managed to get a lawyer and that he expected Kenyan officials in Addis Ababa to be there while they processed him. That never happened.

“The first time I saw a government official was 19 days after my arrest and they asked me if I needed a lawyer. I told them they were 19 days late,” he said.

Political detainee

Because he was labeled a political detainee, he was not allowed to speak to anyone outside. “I never spoke to my family during all those days that I was incarcerated and my lawyer only visited me twice.”

This episode, he says, has devastated him psychologically.

“I thought he was a tough guy because I’ve been through a lot in Somalia, but detention also stops your mind,” he said.

He slept on the floor while in custody, ate on the same floor, and survived mainly on bread and water because he could not bear the prison menu.

He had been released after 35 days in custody, but was detained again outside the police station.

“Suddenly six armed men came with a pickup and then I started to protest,” he said. “I mean, ‘why are they stopping us? We just got released. ‘ So while we were protesting, they started beating us. One of us was hit against the wall. I suffered a broken rib and hurt my back. They forced us into a vehicle. “

The vehicle drove around the city for about 20 minutes, then the men took Juma and the others to the police station from which they had just been released, and then left them there, the journalist said.

After re-arresting him, Juma was again taken to court, this time accused of being an international hacker.

He believes this was because the documentary he was filming for Sky News was about a project funded by Ethiopians in the diaspora that introduces e-learning in at least 10 secondary schools in the Oromo region.

“Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received our delegation before and after completing the establishment of servers in the 10 schools as a pilot project. I was still in the process of interviewing, traveling and editing at the time of my first arrest,” he said.

After three days, they announced that he had tested positive for Covid-19.

“When they brought me to court, I insisted that we should get tested for Covid-19 because there was no running water, the bathroom was dirty and we were using our dirty hands to eat in community,” he explained.

After the results came in, 68 detainees were found to be Covid-19 positive and were placed in isolation in a different block. The next day, Juma led a protest while incarcerated due to the horrible conditions they were subjected to.

“We demand better food and a cleaner detention center. A few days later I was transferred to a clinic, thanks to a letter that I wrote to the Nation Media Group and which was published by the Daily Nation in Nairobi.”