Notices by Zecharias Zelalem (zekuzelalem@dair-community.social)

@flauschtext i know :(

@voxofgod with that attitude, you're aiming for a cabinet position in Addis Ababa

Food is overrated. So what if you've skipped a few meals? You're not hungry. You're just unhappy! Try smiling a bit.....

😐

The report is an extremely disturbing but important read, trigger warning.

The war goes on. The RSF has suffered setbacks on the battlefield in recent months. Sudanese army forces, attacked the capital city Khartoum last month, retaking neighbourhoods and forcing the RSF on the backfoot. But airstrikes have been indiscriminate and have killed civilians.

The Sudanese population continues to endure, suffer, strive to survive.

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session57/A-HRC-57-CRP-6-en.pdf

Sudan: Following the UN's passing of a resolution last year to investigate atrocities in Sudan's ongoing civil war, the UN's fact finding mission published a lengthy 80 page report on Wednesday.

Both the Sudanese Army & the Rapid Support Force paramilitary are accused of war crimes.

The UAE backed RSF are accused of the majority of the weaponized sexual violence, and targeted killings of non Arab ethnic groups, a pattern HRW has already described as potentially genocidal.

In a country that has 16 million food insecure people, famine deaths exacerbated by wars in three regions, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says that dealing with hunger isn't among his gov's objectives.

He says we ought to prioritize "the three Hs."

"Happiness, harmony, human excellence."
"Eating three times a day cannot be our ultimate goal. Humans don't live for food alone."

Prosperity gospel pastor vibes. Maslow pyramid turned upside down.

Video: Addis Standard.

Hello friends in the UK!

If you aren't too busy this weekend, on Sunday night, ITV will be airing a documentary it produced titled "Kingdom Uncovered: Inside Saudi Arabia." It will focus on the human rights issues plaguing a country that will be declared host of the 2034 World Cup soon. Among the issues explored, Saudi Arabia's infamous migrant detention facilities.

I'm told the documentary is partially inspired by my own journalism 🥳

I'll share.
https://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1weekweek-44-2024-sat-26-oct-fri-01-nov/kingdom-uncovered-inside-saudi-arabia

In 2020, I did a lot of freelancing for the London newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

In 2020, I came across accounts in Ethiopian circles of horrible abuse of African migrants in Saudi detention centers. Migrants were just stashed like sardines in horrible conditions, because it was believed they would exacerbate the covid19 pandemic.

To confirm, we used sources to smuggle sim cards and phones into two prisons. It was at the time, the most horrific thing I had worked on.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/investigation-african-migrants-left-die-saudi-arabias-hellish/

The series went viral everywhere.

It was months after the horrific murder of George Floyd. BLM activists drove up traffic. In the UK, it came months after a decision by London to resume selling weapons to KSA. The UN promised us it investigate (it never did).

In an emailed response, the Saudis told us that it blamed Ethiopia. Ethiopia was unwilling to take its citizens back because it was struggling to handle the pandemic. It preferred to let them to rot.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/international-condemnation-rains-saudi-arabia-telegraph-investigation/

My colleague Will Brown and I obtained dozens of photographs & video footage like this, that showed emaciated and dying men, underfed, beaten, suffering from heatstroke in prisons that were overflowing with sewage.

I witnessed the conditions in videocalls made with migrants who had been kept there for 8 months or so. Speaking the same language as those poor boys, made it really gutwrenching work. But it's why involving locals is best for our craft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_gLsbUUYHA

In addition to international condemnation, in Ethiopia, we uncovered leaked documents that showed that Ethiopian officials had been aware of the suffering of their citizens in KSA for months, but instead tried to cover it up.

I had grilled Ethiopian diplomats, who lied lied and lied on record, pretending to have found out when my first article came out. Then published their lies with my third story on leaked docs.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/exclusive-ethiopia-tried-silence-citizens-stuck-hellish-saudi/

Up to 16,000 migrants were held at one facility.

I asked the detainees to send me their "location" using encrypted apps. That's how we were able to learn that migrants are not held at formal prisons, but at locations publicly referred to as "immigration centers" that actually have massive built in prisons.

I'd have to dig up the coordinates on my old phone, as it has been four years. But one of the torture holes is near the Holy city of Mecca.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/16000-migrants-held-saudi-centres-ethiopian-official-reveals/

Both Amnesty and HRW published reports on the matter. Additional media reports were published. After months of outrage, but general inaction...EU Parliament resolution slamming Riyadh for mistreatment of migrants in its prisons was passed.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/eu-parliament-condemns-human-rights-abuses-saudi-migrant-camps/

Five months later, January 2021. Saudi Arabia agrees to begin flying out 1000 migrants a week. Ethiopia agrees to receive them.

It was a feel good moment. Story won at the Fetisov Investigative Journalism Awards for 2021.

Anyways....this was before Ethiopia's horrible wars sent even more people fleeing the country towards migrant escape routes like Saudi Arabia.

So now, more Ethiopians are detained in those same facilities.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/first-migrants-released-saudi-detention-centres-arrive-home/

So I'm told the ITV doc will feature exclusive footage obtained from migrant detention facilities.

I'm also told ITV traveled to Ethiopia and meet one of the returnees from those prisons. It all seems overwhelming and tragic.

UK friends, I'm aware of how prompt the public was to boot out Roman Abramovich (Putin friendly oligarch) from his position atop Chelsea FC following Ukraine invasion.

Nothing of the like for Saudi takeover of Newcastle United though :)

https://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1weekweek-44-2024-sat-26-oct-fri-01-nov/kingdom-uncovered-inside-saudi-arabia

Anyways, be on the lookout this weekend! This doc will serve as a timely reminder of the human rights reality. Something many are conveniently forgetting, thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar & FIFA.

I haven't written for The Telegraph in ages. But, I have submitted a draft to coincide with the release. It will mostly focus on my own experiences producing this story....if it gets published (I might have sent it too late).

Thanks for caring about the plight of migrants!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/z/za-ze/zecharias-zelalem/

Re-upping this on all my platforms, because we cannot tone down our condemnation of this unprecedented slaughter of journalists.

The apathy & indifference in Israel's killing of Palestinian media professionals (130 since 7/10/23 per the IFJ), including among many prominent journalists, is a chilling indictment of our industry as a whole.

Incredibly disturbed by the silence of friends and colleagues & those who cited "objectivity" for it. It has truly been an eye-opening year for journalism.

Last year, ~1,500 journalists including myself, signed this open letter condemning Israel's killing of countless Palestinian journalists, as well as misleading framing of atrocities in Gaza as a whole.

In response, plenty of major newsrooms lashed out at their employees, forcing them to withdraw their signatures. Others signed on anonymously, fearing repercussions. All in all, the sentiments of shock and horror were not shared by everyone in journalism.

https://www.protect-journalists.com/

The argument among many in journalism for muted stances is that journalism ethics requires us to refrain from engagement in activism of all kinds.

But this is actually a western social construct.

Journalism doctrine in Africa leaves space for a huge exception: press freedom advocacy related activism. It's due to the repression often encountered while working on the continent: if journos don't speak up for journos, no one else will.

Silence when journalists are killed is what is unethical.

A source in Lebanon tells me that there have been two mass roundups of Syrian refugees at Beirut's Martyrs' Square since Saturday. The Syrians had been displaced by Israeli airstrikes & were on the streets with scores of other IDPs. The source tells me she is certain that Syrians were targeted, because police went around asking people for identifying documents, presumably to avoid arresting Lebanese.

The Saturday arrests began late, around 22h00, just after journalists had left for the night.