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, 2001

His Excellency Dr. Fecadu Gadamu
The Embassy of Ethiopia in Canada
#210-151 Slater Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5H3
Canada

Your Excellency,

I am writing to you to express my concern about the detention, trial and imprisonment of Dr Taye Woldesemayat, who has been incarcerated in Addis Ababa Central Prison since August 1996 and was recently handed down a fifteen year prison sentence without credit for time served.

I believe that you may know Taye personally, as you and he were teaching at Addis Ababa University in the early 1990s.

Dr Taye was an International Assistant at Illinois State University. In this role, Taye was responsible for welcoming, orientating and supporting hundreds and hundreds of international students that attended Illinois State. His generous contribution is indelible in the lives of these people, who have gone on to successful careers and are now global citizens.

You can well understand, therefore, that those Illinois State alumni are incredulous that he could be accused and convicted of armed conspiracy. Their feeling is totally consistent with Amnesty International's suspicion that Dr Taye is a prisoner of conscience, jailed only for his beliefs. His detention and degrading treatment in prison is a source of distress and anguish to those that knew him personally.

Dr Taye has made immense contributions to both people and institutions in North America, among which is the Illinois State University International House. Illinois State alumni and their local communities all over the world are active in this campaign to appeal to your government to open an unbiased investigation about the allegations made against Dr Taye, and to secure his release, or at least house arrest, in the earliest possible timeframe.

We have many examples in recent history of prisoners of conscience that were prevented from contributing to their communities and nations. The sooner that Dr Taye can be released from prison, the sooner that Ethiopia and indeed the world can start benefiting again from his contribution to our lives.

Yours respectfully,