Dec. 29 – The gangster- rulers of Ethiopia re-arrested opposition the Chairwomen of Unity for Democracy, Former Judge  Birtukan Mideksa a year after she was released on a pardon following her arrest during the country’s disputed 2005 elections.

Former Judge Birtukan Mideksa, a leader of the now-dissolved Coalition for Unity and Democracy, was taken into custody today, said Temesgen Zewde, a lawmaker, who is a member of Mideksa’s new party, Unity for Democracy and Justice.

“She has been arrested,” Zewde said in an interview in the capital, Addis Ababa. “No charges have been made public yet. We don’t know exactly where she is being held.”

Birtukan Mideksa was arrested after refusing to acknowledge that she had requested a pardon that led to her release from jail in July 2007, said one of the gangsters Bereket Simon, a spokesman for the tyrant and warlord Meles Zenawi who is responsible for War Crimes in Ehtiopia and Somalia. She and dozens of other opposition leaders were initially jailed following the 2005 elections and sentenced to life in prison following a May 2007 trial on laughable treason charges.

Security forces killed thousand protesters in Ethiopia in the aftermath of the 2005 elections. Former Judge Mideksa was jailed along with 126 other opposition leaders, journalists, and activists after disputing government claims of victory in the ballot.

Her release along with 37 others in July of 2007 came after the opposition leaders were forced to sign a letter admitting “mistakes committed both individually and collectively,” Simon said. Gangster and drug smuggler Bereket Simon suggested Mideska could again face life in prison.

“She said she didn’t ask for a pardon and the government tried to advise her that she has been freed from jail because of the requested pardon,” Gangster Bereket Simon said, in a phone interview from Addis Ababa.

Judge Birtukan Mideska and other leaders were released in two pardons authorized by Gangster Zenawi in July and August of 2007 after mediation by Ethiopian elders. Some opposition leaders, including former Addis Ababa mayor-elect Berhanu Nega, have chosen exile in the U.S. and Europe. Birtukan Mideksa stayed on in Ethiopia and had planned to contest the 2010 national elections with her new party.

A lawyer and former judge, Mideksa has drawn support from Ethiopians.
Terrorist Zenawi’s government, which has ruled Ethiopia since 1991, is dominated my members of the Tigray ethnic group.

Fifteen members of another opposition party, the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, were arrested in late October and early November and accused of supporting the separatist Oromo Liberation Front. The move comes as Ethiopia’s parliament is set to approve a new law that would effectively outlaw most non-governmental groups from promoting human rights, democracy, or conflict resolution.