Birtukan Mideksa

Birtukan Mideksa was born in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. She attended Miazia 23 missionary elementary school and later the Yekatit 12 secondary school also known as Etege Menen School. After graduating from high school, she attended Addis Ababa University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.). On 2014, Birtukan received Master of Art (M.A.) in Public Administration from Harvard University.[3] She is a mother of a daughter name Haale Mideksa who was born in 2005.

Birtukan started her career as associate judge. Later she was appointed to be a judge at the 3rd district court of the federal first instant court. In July 2002, she presided over a high-profile case of the former top ranking official of TPLF and Ministry of Defense (Ethiopia) Siye Abraha who was accused of corruption. She set the defendant free on bail, and which was surprised minutes later when government authorities arrested Siye while he was walking out of the court accompanied by his family and friends. Following the re-arrest of Siye, Birtukan received threat and intimidation from government security officials. She then resigned from federal court and start an independent Law firm. She worked as Lawyer from late 2003 to 2005.[4]

Birtukan decided to join a political party to help bring about change, including recognition of the rule of law, and full respect for the implementation of the constitution. She joined the Rainbow Ethiopia: Movement for Democracy and Social Justice Party, and later Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). In the election of 2005, her party won over a third of the seats. Party members believed they would have won even more seats if not for voting and counting irregularities. After the election, the governing party started to round up opposition party leaders, Mideksa, who was convicted of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and was sentenced to life in prison. She was pardoned in 2007 after lengthy negotiations and after she, along with other leaders of the opposition, spent 18 months in prison.[5]

Mideksa later founded UDJ (Unity for Democracy and Justice) with the same principles that guided CUD. The need for having the new party name came from the fact that the ruling party's election commission awarded to a splinter group from CUD (aka Kinijit). Birtukan was elected to be a chairperson of the UDJ, which has the goal of bringing about change in Ethiopia by peaceful means.

On December 28, 2008, Birtukan was re-arrested. Her 2007 pardon was revoked and she was sentenced to life in prison.[6] Human Rights Watch called the arrest politically motivated.[5] The Ethiopian government claimed that her pardon had been conditional on "an apology for her crimes," and that it had ordered her re-arrest after hearing reports that she had publicly denied having apologized for her actions or asking for a pardon. Elizabeth Blunt of the BBC said that since her arrest, Birtukan, whom she described as "one of the younger and more charismatic leaders of the coalition which did so astonishingly well against the ruling party in the 2005 elections," had become "even more of a heroine, attracting widespread sympathy as a single mother separated from her baby daughter."[5][7]

On December 2009, Amnesty International categorized Birtukan's imprisonment as "unjust and politically motivated" The organization also launched an international campaign demanding her release, challenging the Ethiopian government's claim that her incarceration was a legal matter.[8]

On October 6, 2010, Birtukan was released from prison.[9] According to government spokesman Shimeles Kemal, Birtukan submitted a pardon plea in October 2010, while the justice ministry quoted a statement in which she expressed regret for denying her 2007 pardon.[9] The United Kingdom's Minister for Africa, Henry Bellingham, welcomed her release, stating "This is an important step forward. We have always taken the view that her re-imprisonment was not in Ethiopia's interest and a solution to Ethiopia's political problem."[9][10]

On 2011 Birtukan resigned from politics and went to the US, to study at Harvard. She was awarded the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship of the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, giving her five months in Washington, D.C. to "study the principles of democracy."[11] As of 30 March 2013, Mideksa was a fellow at Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

Starting from mid 2014 she had been working as Researcher at National Endowment for Democracy until her return to Ethiopia on late November 2018 following 2016 Ethiopian protests which results an end to the 27 years of TPLF led EPRDF government.

Encouraged by the political reforms started by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in April 2018, Birtukan returned to Ethiopia in November 2018. On November 23, 2018, she was elected and sworn in as chairperson of the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE).[1]

• Birtukan Mideksa Freedom Collection interview