Mebrihi Brhane Abrha

Humanity, dignity and Liberty:
Alumni @iijmalta
Lawyer & Vice Director @rightsfirst1st

[Mebrihi Brhane Abrha @Meb_MBA]

We are happy to announce Article Law Firm has started providing legal advocacy services in Addis Ababa at federal courts.
@hrfirst2022

[Kenneth Roth @KenRoth]

Regional authorities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region should withdraw a proclamation that purports to grant them sweeping powers to compel military service and punish dissent. https://t.co/NCkcGSeGby

[Laetitia Bader @LaetitiaBader]

Regional authorities in #Ethiopia's Tigray region, the TPLF, should immediately withdraw a disturbing new law that grants sweeping powers to compel military service and punish dissent, and imposes the death penalty for a range of vague offenses. New @hrw https://t.co/Yx4XZu7BF4

[The IIJ @iijmalta]

On this International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, we highlight our commitment to addressing sexual-based violence in all its forms through stronger human rights frameworks and international collaboration.

[Tesfalem Berhe ( Lawyer and attorney in Addis .) @hrfirst2022]

June 4, 2026
A Brief Investigative Report Of Human Rights First on Forced Military Recruitment in the Tigray Region

For A Detailed Report please visit our website:-
https://t.co/owxEqev9mW

[Dawit Endeshaw @dendeshaw]

After extensive interview of 27 eyewitnesses, a
new report by Human Rights First – Ethiopia (local NGO) reveals widespread forced military conscription and mass roundups across #Tigray is taking place. #Ethiopia
Full report 👇
https://t.co/Fh48Rtn2in

[Getachew Temare @getachew_temare]

The European Union’s latest statement on #Ethiopia’s 7th general election is not merely disappointing. It is a revealing document of diplomatic surrender. The EU and its partners did not simply “welcome” an election. They welcomed the normalization of an electoral exercise conducted in a country where the basic conditions for democratic legitimacy remain deeply broken: civic space is shrinking, independent media is under pressure, opposition actors operate under fear, conflict continues in several regions, and millions of citizens are effectively excluded from meaningful political participation.
The most striking part of the statement is not what it says, but what it carefully avoids saying. It does not seriously speak about free and fair elections. It does not confront the absence of a level political field. It does not name the climate of fear around journalists, civil society, and opposition voices. It does not meaningfully address the fact that elections could not be held in #Tigray and parts of other conflict-affected areas. It does not ask whether ballots cast under repression, displacement, insecurity, and political fragmentation can produce legitimate democratic consent. This is not diplomacy. It is democratic language emptied of democratic substance.
The EU knows better. Its own election principles recognize that elections are not made credible by polling stations alone. Credible elections require freedom of expression, freedom of association, fair competition, independent media, civil society participation, public trust, and protection from intimidation. When those conditions are absent, congratulatory diplomacy becomes political laundering.
This is exactly the danger I warned about in my latest article on how external powers are rewarding impunity in Ethiopia: https://t.co/c19Oh7msnX. Europe’s posture toward Ethiopia has increasingly been shaped less by democracy and accountability than by migration management, refugee containment, and outsourced border control. Ethiopia is treated as a geopolitical buffer before Libya, before the Mediterranean, before Europe’s domestic panic over migration.
That logic is morally corrosive. Europe wants Ethiopia to contain migration while refusing to confront the political crisis that is helping produce desperation, displacement, and flight in the first place. A government whose record is stained by mass violence, unresolved atrocities, repression, and institutional breakdown cannot be rewarded with democratic legitimacy simply because it held another managed election. Ballots do not cleanse blood. Election day does not erase war, displacement, impunity, or fear.
The EU’s statement shows how far its Ethiopia policy has fallen: from defending democratic principles to managing diplomatic convenience; from demanding accountability to welcoming procedure; from supporting the Ethiopian people to stabilizing the regime that has failed them. The tragedy is not only that Ethiopia’s election lacks credibility. The deeper tragedy is that Europe no longer feels compelled even to pretend seriously that credibility matters. @eu_eeas @EU_Commission

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

Ethiopia’s prime minister aspires to what he calls national “sovereignty”, by which he means an economy less exposed to outside pressures. That still looks distant https://t.co/f1l3qY9P8v

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

The prime minister’s ambitions threaten both his country and the Horn of Africa https://t.co/Vmkg8nHAh1

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

The prime minister says he is uniting Ethiopians. Register for free to discover why, in practice, that has meant centralising power https://t.co/Kte52CiE6U

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

The prime minister’s re-election is certain. Ethiopia’s future is less so https://t.co/4cO8s7Pu6n

[Laetitia Bader @LaetitiaBader]

Death in Darfur: 3 days of horror caught on camera https://t.co/tLZyuLUp19 via @SpecialReports

[Cameron Hudson @_hudsonc]

The AU Turned Pretoria Into Abiy’s Shield. This will definitely rub a lot of people the wrong way. I wont comment on the role of the Tigrayans or even Abiym but do agree that the AU and IGAD have been wholly biased in their view of Pretoria since signing. https://t.co/4cZF3lhrvy

[Human Rights Watch @hrw]

At least 65 Ethiopian migrants are at imminent risk of execution in Saudi Arabia for drug-related offenses.

Saudi Arabia’s extensive use of the death penalty is intertwined with fundamental and systemic rights violations.

The death sentences should be commuted and the death penalty abolished. https://t.co/TzN2IYebKr

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

Ethiopia’s election next month will be a sham. Many of Abiy Ahmed’s rivals are either in exile or in jail. Opposition parties have been co-opted, cowed or banned https://t.co/1DBbWGAlqA

[Laetitia Bader @LaetitiaBader]

At least 65 Ethiopian migrants are at imminent risk of execution in Saudia Arabia for drug-related offenses following unfair proceedings. Saudi Arabia's partners should immediately intervene before it's too late. New @hrw https://t.co/88cOYAwPw9

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

Ethiopia’s prime minister says the next election will be the most open and democratic in the country’s history. In reality it will be a sham. Discover the full story: register to read for free https://t.co/tuiCbgfPOU

[Gisa Tunbridge @gisa_tunbridge]

In 2019 Abiy Ahmed said he was building "an Ethiopia that is second to none in its guarantee of freedoms of expression". Instead he has built an Ethiopia where journalists mysteriously disappear. Million Beyene is the latest victim 👇

https://t.co/p1GzOGv6HH

[Mebrihi Brhane Abrha @Meb_MBA]

The TPLF has decided to return to the pre November 4, 2020 government established by the September 2020 sham election.
This effectively signals the end of the Pretoria Agreement.

[Laetitia Bader @LaetitiaBader]

Deeply troubling news about the abduction and disappearance of Million Beyene, Addis Standard's managing editor by plainclothes individuals. Relevant authorities should urgently launch an investigation to whereabouts.