By Mekonen Elalla | October 6, 2013 Mekonen Elalla Mekonen Elalla The united nation international human right convention paragraph 9, 10, and 11 declare no citizen of any country shall be arrested without reasonable ground of conviction; and if he or she is indicted in any kind of charge or wrong doing, it states the right of the subject to be presented in front of a legitimate court in early possible time. The protocol also clearly illustrates that until the legitimate court sentences the subject as guilty, his or her right of innocence must be respected and maintained. The 1991 Ethiopian government constitution which is based itself on the international human right protocol has also declares this right in its chapter 17 paragraph 2 that no citizen of the country shall be arrested without a warrant issued from a legal court; and if this is done properly, his or her right to stand in face of a legal body to get a trial no later than sooner must be guaranteed. Ethiopia is not only among those countries that drafted and ratified the international human right convention, it is also one of the pioneer fifty-one countries who found the United Nation. Read more…

Survivors of Thursday’s boat tragedy off the coast of Lampedusa shelter in an area of the tiny island’s port. UNHCR is sending more staff to the island today to meet and help the survivors

ROME, Italy, October 6 (UNHCR) –The UN refugee agency on Friday reported that rescue efforts on southern Italy’s Lampedusa Island are now focused on helping people who survived the sinking a day earlier of the flimsy boat on which they were trying to reach Europe from North Africa.

“A colleague in Lampedusa, who we spoke to an hour ago, is reporting 155 survivors, all but one of whom is Eritrean – the other is Tunisian,” UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming said on Friday morning.

The UNHCR staff member in Lampedusa also reported that the search operation had been called off because of rough seas. Some 111 bodies have been recovered so far, but with a reported 500 people on board and the boat on which they were travelling having now sunk, it is feared that many bodies remain trapped in the wreckage on the sea floor. Read more…