Australia’s government is about to deport an Ethiopian woman and member of the outlawed group Patriotic Ginbot 7, after four years stay.
A former employee of the Ethiopian government, Yeshiwork Abrha, faces deportation as her papers expire today, according to media reports from Melbourne.
Yeshiwork travelled to Australia in 2011 with a three-month visa to attend a short-term professional development training sponsored by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture.
Before the completion of the courses, she decided to seek political asylum.
The immigration authorities, however, rejected the application. An officer reviewing her claim wrote:
“I am … of the view that the applicant either does not think it is important to provide correct information to the department at all times or that she has sought to embellish her claims.”
Yeshiwork’s appeal to the country’s Refugee Review Tribunal was likewise rejected in February 2013, despite support letters from the outlawed group Patriotic Ginbot 7.
A letter written to the Australian authorities in 2012 by the group’s secretary-general Andargachew Tsege was quoted, by Fairfax Media, as saying:
“Yeshiwork is one of our active member [sic] in Melbourne, Australia which is known by the international security tentacles [sic] of the Ethiopian regime operating from each Embassies around the world [sic]…We strongly believe that if forced to return to Ethiopia she would gravely suffer in the hands of the agents of the repressive regime”.
The letter however, doesn’t seem to corroborate Yeshiwork’s claim that she was the group’s member before arriving in Australia.
Yeshiwork does not seem to face any impending criminal charges or convictions in Addis Ababa. However, she is claiming that “immediate arrest and persecution and death” awaits her if forced to return to Ethiopia drawing parallels to Andargachew.
Andargachew himself was extradited to Ethiopia in mid-2013. The British citizen was captured upon arrival at Yemeni capital en route to Eritrea – where the group based its armed units. He is in prison since, as a 2009 trial sentenced him to death in absentia.
Ethiopia has not implemented the death sentence for more than a decade. Though there is a theoretical probability Yeshiwork could be charged an offence, the general practice is to overlook such asylum-motivated participation in an outlawed group.
Members of an Anglican Church in Melbourne collected about 300 hundred signatures pleading her deportation will put her life is in risk.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Yeshiwork had been ordered to report to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection last week. Then, the department granted her seven days to prepare her travel documents to leave.
“With no valid visa, it is all but certain she will be sent to a detention center and authorities will prepare to deport her”, the newspaper reported.
*************
Leave a Comment