Ethiopian Parliament today approves the appointment of former advisor of Amnesty International Daniel Bekele, to serve as Commissioner of Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.
Daniel has served in different organization including as Executive Director of the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch and advisor at Amnesty International. Daniel who holds Master’s Degree in International Law and legal Studies from Oxford university, has also been working as independent consultant.
Today the Parliament selected Daniel Bekele to lead the state agency – Ethiopia’s Human Rights Commission – after considering 73 male and 15 female candidates for the position.
In the 2005 parliamentary elections in Ethiopia, Daniel was actively involved in promoting human rights, and independent election monitoring, as well as peace initiatives in the aftermath of the post-election crisis.
However, he was arrested by the authorities and spent more than two years in prison. He was internationally recognized as prisoner of conscience, and in 2009 received the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism and in 2010 was nominated for the Martin Ennals Human Rights Defenders Award and the Index Freedom of Expression Award.
Daniel is replacing the pervious commissioner, Addisu Gebregziabhair, who was appointed to serve as Ethiopian ambassador to Zimbabwe.