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  • 2022-02-18 (xsd:date)
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  • BBC documentary shared on Facebook shows plight of Ethiopian migrants in a Saudi prison, but does not feature Jawar Mohammed (en)
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  • A Facebook post sharing links to a YouTube video, claims that it shows Ethiopian opposition figure Jawar Mohammed addressing the plight of jailed Ethiopian migrants in Saudi Arabia, during an interview with the Oromia Media Network (OMN). But this is false: the clip is from a BBC documentary about Ethiopian migrants held in a detention centre in Saudi Arabia. OMN also told AFP Fact Check that the network has not interviewed Jawar about the issue. The post was published on Facebook on February 9, 2022, and has since been shared nearly 240 times. Screenshot showing the misleading post, taken on February 11, 2022 Written in Afaan Oromoo, it translates to: Jawar Mohammed is live on OMN speaking about the grievances of Oromo youth held in Saudi Arabia prisons. The post then asks Facebook users to click on a URL to watch the interview: Please follow the link below to watch the full interview. The post also contains a composite image of Jawar and OMN editor-in-chief Dajanee Guutama. Jawar, founder of the OMN and a member of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, is one of around 20 political prisoners who were allegedly arrested in connection with the June-July 2020 riots in Ethiopia that left more than 100 people dead. The government pardoned Jawar on January 7, 2022, as reported by AFP. He and several other detainees were then released , according to the state-run Ethiopia Broadcasting Corporation. Media reports say that hundreds of thousands of migrants from Ethiopia are held in appalling conditions in Saudi detention centres. In March 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that the migrants were subjected to ill-treatment and deplorable conditions. Several factors , including unemployment, conflict and other economic difficulties, have driven Ethiopians to migrate in large numbers over the past decade, travelling by boat across the Red Sea and then by land through Yemen to Saudi Arabia. But the claim that Jawar was interviewed by OMN is false. Jawar not in video Jawar does not feature in the video, as the Facebook post claims. The video is a BBC Afaan Oromoo documentary about Ethiopian migrants locked in a crowded detention facility in Saudi Arabia. The clips show an Ethiopian detainee, covering his body with black plastic bags, who says: We are Ethiopian citizens being held at a Saudi Arabian prison. We live under very inhuman conditions. It has been one year and eight months since we were locked up in this detention facility and no one has ever told us when we’ll get out. We don't get enough food, water and we don’t even have clothes to change. We are forced to wear plastic bags as you can see, he adds. ORM didn’t interview Jawar But Dajanee told AFP Fact Check that OMN has not interviewed Jawar on the subject of Ethiopian migrants detained in Saudi Arabia. He (Jawar) did not do an interview about Ethiopians held in Saudi Arabia with us. And the photo used in the post purporting to show that I interviewed Mr Jawar has been digitally altered to create the impression that it shows Jawar and myself, he said. By conducting a reverse image search , AFP Fact Check found that the image used in the post was lifted from a February 1, 2022, Facebook post by Melese Diribsa, a journalist and friend of Jawar who met him in Addis Ababa a few days after his release. The photo shows Jawar (centre) with Diribsa (left) and Eyasped Tesfaye (right), also a journalist based in Addis Ababa. (en)
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