My name is Mulugeta Ayenew Gebremedin.  I was born in capital city of Ethiopia Addis Ababa on the 6th of April of 1964.  I belong to the Orthodox Christian church of Ethiopia.  My mother’s parents were modest landowners.  My father Fitawerari Ayenew Ggebremedin belonged to Ethiopian aristocracy.

My grandfather Shumtenbien Gebremedin  Engda was the Governor of Western Tigray and the Governor of (Nebreid) the Holy city of Axum. He was also a respected war veteran of the 1935 Italian fascist invasion.

My father was a member of the late emperor Haileselassie's special crown court and also became Governor of the holy city of Axum.  He also was a war veteran of the 1935 Italian invasion and a prisoner of war. Before the revolution our family operated extensive farms throughout Ethiopia. That changed with the communist take over of Ethiopia in 1974.

Our family was condemned as reactionaries and feudal bourgeois by the ruling junta.  My father was one of the first to be imprisoned. His close friends and colleagues faced firing squads, luckily his life was spared. His suffering lasted much longer. Most of our property was confiscated. The emperor was killed.

For the next seventeen years The DERGUE turned the country into a prison.   In December of 1978, The DERGUE imprisoned me. I was 13 years old.  I was accused of supporting the EPRP (Ethiopian People Revolutionary Party). I was in prison for one year and 28 days with no charges or trial.  I faced interrogation, sleep depravation, and hunger.

I was in prison when my father died.