Sawt Falasteen - Ethiopian dissident Eskinder Nega freed from detention: party

The leading Amhara opposition figure was held Friday evening by security forces and later jailed in the regional capital Bahir Dar, the Balderas for Genuine Democracy party said in a statement.

"Before his arrest, Eskinder did not have a criminal charge to his name, was not on a wanted list, and was not facing a court summons," said the party he founded and led until the middle of last year.

Late Sunday, the party said Eskinder had been freed, in a brief statement posted on its Facebook page.

Eskinder has been detained multiple times under several Ethiopian governments.

He was pardoned and released from prison in January 2022 along with a number of other political activists and leaders after serving 18 months behind bars.

He was rounded up in mass political arrests that followed deadly protests in mid-2020 sparked by the killing of a popular Oromo singer.

Balderas for Genuine Democracy failed to win a single seat in Ethiopia's 2021 general election.

P.Tamimi--SF-PST