Voices of the voiceless

EYSC-UK members along with other youth and ENCDC members have been at the forefront of anti PFDJ Festival demonstration held in London and have their black and white stripped prisoners t-shirt and hand chains to symbolize and prove it. Now they are bringing the spirit of defiance to the streets of UK where the Eritrean communities are found to challenge PFDJ.

Youth social and political defiance activism and political opposition organizations come together often, but rarely in such combustible form as in London demonstration yesterday. ‘The Dictator must step down now’ ‘Human Rights and Justice’ ‘Release Prisoners of Conscience’ ‘Enough is Enough’ ‘Dictator Must Go’, and ‘Leave (Arhal) dictator Isaias’ are some of the angry pieces comprised of the chants of the day, cracked under the strain of repeated performance by the demonstrators.

The demonstration was called on the 11^th Anniversary of the imprisonment of 11 members of Eritrean ministers and parliament known as G15 and 10 journalists. They are prisoners of conscience who have been detained without charge or trial solely for expressing their non-violent opinions like thousands of others who preceded and followed them. It is noted that the G11 led a growing mutiny or dissident demanding for a democratic reform through the implementation of the Eritrean Constitution and pluralism which affirms a multi-party civilian democratic political system with fair and free elections. Conversely the independent press that is essential for democracy and published the dissented G15 views was completely shut down concurrently as the dissents arrests.

We reminded to the dwindling of the PFDJ festival goers that we won’t rest until all prisoners of conscience are released and the demand of the Eritrean cause is realized. On this occasion I would like to remind people to become involved so that the process of democratic changed can be speeded up by some scope for a little bit more dynamism on the way we mobilize political consent around action and stop making fuss. I think this is the right approach otherwise our cause will perish. It is worth considering our objectives in being in the opposition- objectives which significantly or radically has to change to focus on the Eritrean people’s priorities.

The most sensible course would be to engage in a conversation, but if you can’t at least show solidarity with any opposition led activities whether they advocate peaceful means of struggle or all legitimate means.

In the end all the demonstrators gathered one final time outside the venue and read out the names of the prisoners of conscience quite loudly one by one and said we have not forgotten you!

Finally some of us headed towards the venue where the opposition members in London organized a celebration on the 51 Anniversary of launching Eritrean armed struggle. There we had food and met several veteran freedom fighters from both the EPLF and ELF, in addition the attendance of women, children and youth made it look a colourful night. Last but not least people enjoyed and danced to Revolutionary songs performed by veteran Matea and ELF singer Hussien Mohammed Ali and other youth singers like Abubaker (Togoruba) and Yassin, and one unsung hero a young singer from Birmingham Daniel and his band.

Bereket Kahsai

UK 

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Posted by farajat on Sep 18 2012 Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry