“Extremely Spoiled Brat Criminals”: Tigray Women’s Cry for Justice Amid Ashenda and a Peaceful Challenge to Power
This year’s Ashenda celebration was set to begin tomorrow, August 22, 2026, with girls and women across Tigray preparing once again to take to the streets in colourful traditional dress, music and dance. But the festival is opening under a shadow. Three years after Zewdu Haftu was killed during the Ashenda season, and only weeks after the men once convicted of her murder were acquitted and released, a growing number of women are calling for this year’s celebration to become something more than festivity. Through the Ashenda in Black campaign, they are turning one of Tigray’s most important celebrations of women and girls into a peaceful public demand for justice, accountability and institutional change. What was expected to begin as a cultural celebration is now also becoming a test of whether grief, dissent and calls for reform can be expressed peacefully in Tigray without being silenced, politicized or pushed back into the language of force.
“ብጣዕሚ ሕንቁቃት ገበነኛታት” — “Extremely spoiled brat criminals.”
That is how Mehari Gebru, a former judge in Tigray and recent LL.M. graduate from an Irish university, describes the extraordinary twists in the case of Zewdu Haftu: a young woman brutally killed during the Ashenda season; her surviving friend later detained for months; two men eventually convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment; allegations of pressure on investigators and judges; crucial evidence later missing from the court file; and, ultimately, the reversal of the convictions and release of the defendants.
For many Tigrayan women, the case has become about much more than the murder of one woman. It has become a test of whether Tigray’s police, courts and government institutions can protect ordinary citizens when people accused of serious crimes are connected to powerful political or military figures.
That question has returned with particular force during Ashenda, the annual festival traditionally devoted to celebrating Tigrayan women and girls. Three years after Zewdu was killed during a season when women and girls traditionally fill streets and public squares with music, dance and colourful traditional clothing, activists are asking women to replace those colours with black.
Their message is simple: Ashenda in Black. Justice for Zewdu.
1. From a Festival of Women to a Demand for Justice
Ashenda is among Tigray’s most important cultural celebrations of girls and young women. Traditionally dressed in elaborate clothing and jewellery, groups of girls braid their hair, sing, dance and move through neighbourhoods and public spaces together. The festival gives women and girls unusual visibility and ownership of public space.
That symbolism makes what happened to Zewdu especially painful.
On the evening of August 19, 2023, during the Ashenda season, 32-year-old Zewdu Haftu was walking in Mekelle with her friend Semhal Gebregziabiher when the encounter that ended her life occurred.
Accounts of evidence subsequently presented in court described an apparent attempted sexual assault. When Zewdu resisted, she was reportedly dragged by her hair before being deliberately run over by a vehicle. She died from her injuries.
Her killing shocked Tigray, both because of its brutality and because it occurred openly in the regional capital during a season dedicated to celebrating women.
Zewdu entered Ashenda season as one of Tigray’s daughters. She did not survive it.
The case soon became even more disturbing because of what happened to Semhal. She survived the attack and was taken to Ayder Hospital while suffering severe psychological trauma. Instead of being treated solely as a surviving witness, however, she was subsequently detained.
According to accounts from the period, police forcibly removed Semhal from the hospital before her doctors had discharged her. Authorities then reportedly advanced the theory that she might somehow have conspired with the attackers and helped push Zewdu toward their vehicle.
Semhal consequently spent more than eight months in detention without being charged.
The surviving friend who had watched Zewdu die found herself confined in a cell while the case against the men accused of killing Zewdu became increasingly entangled in delays, institutional conflict and allegations of interference.
2. Semhal’s Memories: A Daughter, a Mother and an “Ambassador of Ashenda”
This week, Semhal published one of her most personal reflections yet on Zewdu, her family and what the campaign for justice means.
Her post moves the story away from court files, telecommunications evidence and political power and back to the people who have lived with the consequences every day for three years.
Semhal begins with Zewdu’s mother, whom she affectionately calls “Adeway”, “my mother.” She recalls a summer during their university years when Zewdu invited friends to her family home because her mother had prepared siwa, the traditional fermented drink.
Semhal remembers the home as physically modest, a single room she estimates at roughly four metres by four metres, but says the family’s warmth, love and hospitality made it feel much larger. She remembers Zewdu affectionately calling her mother “Adeway” and her father “Aboway.”
The memory is striking precisely because of its ordinariness. Zewdu was not yet a symbol, a court case or a hashtag. She was a daughter bringing friends home, laughing with them and proudly sharing her family with them.
Then Semhal moves from memory to loss.
“Three years ago, on this day, cruel people took her daughter Zewdu from Adeway.”
She describes Zewdu as her mother’s hope, the light of her eyes, her provider and her daughter. For three full years, Semhal writes, Zewdu’s mother has remained in tears. She also says that Zewdu’s father died roughly a year after his daughter’s killing, consumed, in her words, by grief and sorrow.
Semhal says Zewdu’s family repeatedly expresses one wish, “እዚ ኣብ ገዛና ዝኣተወ ሓዘን ኣብ ካሊእ ገዛ ከይኣትዉ.” “May the grief that entered our home never enter another home.”
Semhal says she answers Zewdu’s mother with a promise: “Adeway, your children, the children of Tigray, have risen so that this grief does not enter every one of our homes. We will not rest until Zewdu’s soul rests.”
She adds: “We promise you that we will not tire until your tears are dried.”
Her second recollection is especially significant to Ashenda in Black because it reveals how deeply Zewdu herself loved the festival. “I have never met anyone who loved Ashenda like Zewdu.”
Semhal writes that Zewdu would begin talking about Ashenda as soon as the summer rains arrived, discussing what they would wear, how they should style their hair and whether they should dress alike.
She recalls one Ashenda celebration in when Zewdu arrived late to meet her near Romanat. Semhal initially became angry, but then noticed that Zewdu’s hands were swollen. Zewdu had repeatedly stopped along the way to join groups of children celebrating Ashenda, taking their koboro drums and playing for them.
By the time she reached Semhal, her hands were swollen from drumming.
Semhal writes: “She really was an ambassador of Ashenda.”
That memory gives the current campaign an additional meaning. The woman whose name is now attached to Ashenda in Black was herself someone who embraced Ashenda with unusual joy. She loved its clothing, its music and its gathering of women and girls.
3. The Colonel, His Family Connections and Allegations of Interference
At the center of the controversy surrounding the defendants is Colonel Gebreselassie Belay, a powerful figure within Tigray’s security establishment. His significance goes far beyond simply being related to one defendant. Gebreselassie has occupied senior positions within Tigray’s security institutions, including senior roles within the Tigray Police Commission and, subsequently, military command.
Both defendants had close personal connections to him.
Yared Gebreselassie is his son. Angesom Hailemariam, the second defendant, is reported to be his brother-in-law and personal driver. The relationships immediately presented Tigray’s institutions with an unusually sensitive test: could police officers independently investigate the son and close relative of a powerful figure from within their own security establishment? Could prosecutors pursue the case without interference? Could judges decide it without intimidation? And could court orders be enforced when individuals with military and political influence had a personal interest in the outcome?
Police investigators and others familiar with the case have alleged that Colonel Gebreselassie used his position and influence to exert pressure on officers investigating his son and relative. UMD Media previously reported allegations that detectives working on the Zewdu investigation faced significant pressure and that some officers were reportedly removed or dismissed because of their involvement in pursuing the case.
A lawyer who spoke to UMD Media praised the investigators for continuing their work despite what he described as intense interference.
These allegations cannot be separated from the extraordinary institutional events that subsequently surrounded the case: a principal eyewitness imprisoned for months; a prosecution that stretched over nearly two years; judges and prosecutors reporting threats and insecurity; court operations being suspended; convictions eventually secured; critical evidence later becoming unavailable; and the convictions ultimately being overturned.
No single one of these developments proves that Colonel Gebreselassie orchestrated the outcome. But their convergence, combined with his relationship to the defendants and position within the security establishment, explains the depth of public suspicion.
4. From Police Leadership to Army 22, and a Broader Crisis of Civilian Authority
The controversy surrounding Gebreselassie did not end with the police investigation.
Under the administration of former Tigray Interim Regional Administration President Getachew Reda, Gebreselassie was removed from his police position amid broader controversy surrounding alleged interventions in this and other cases.
But his removal did not end his influence. He was subsequently placed in command of Army 22 by military leaders who had entered into an increasingly open political confrontation with Getachew’s administration.
That transition became particularly significant because Army 22 itself was subsequently accused of interfering with civilian law enforcement. UMD Media previously reported an incident involving Berhane Gebregergis, whose case was being handled by the Tigray Police Commission. According to information reviewed by UMD Media, police sought judicial authorization to search Berhane’s residence as part of their investigation.
Army 22 was subsequently accused of intervening to prevent police from carrying out lawful actions and facilitating the suspect’s release outside normal procedures. The Tigray Police Commission later indicated that it could not proceed because of circumstances beyond its control.
Those allegations have never been fully and independently adjudicated. But they point to a larger question extending far beyond Zewdu’s murder: who ultimately possesses coercive authority in Tigray, civilian police and courts or politically connected military commanders?
A court may issue an order. A prosecutor may request evidence. A judge may pronounce a sentence. But none of those acts has practical meaning if armed institutions can decide whether the law will actually be enforced.
The Zewdu case became a particularly stark example of that institutional problem.
5. When the Courtroom Became Unsafe, and Convictions Were Finally Secured
Concerns over interference became dramatically visible during the Zewdu proceedings.
As the case approached its conclusion, a confrontation erupted inside the courtroom involving the defendants and members of their family.
According to accounts provided to UMD Media, Yared verbally threatened and insulted judges, while his mother allegedly told members of the court: “You will be destroyed soon.”
The disruption was serious enough that judicial operations were suspended. The crisis expanded beyond one courtroom, with courts in Mekelle and surrounding areas temporarily stopping services because judges and other legal professionals said they could not safely perform their duties.
The Tigray Judges Association issued an extraordinary warning about what it described as persistent threats, pressure and direct interference against judges. The Tigray Public Prosecutors Association similarly warned that fear among prosecutors was undermining the justice system, while the Tigray Lawyers Association condemned intimidation and political or military interference in judicial affairs.
This was no longer simply public speculation about whether influential people could manipulate justice. The people administering Tigray’s justice system were themselves publicly warning that the independence and physical security of the judiciary were under threat.
Despite those obstacles, the court eventually convicted Yared Gebreselassie and Angesom Hailemariam of Zewdu’s murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment.
For Zewdu’s family, women’s-rights advocates and legal professionals who had persisted through years of pressure, the judgment briefly appeared to demonstrate that even politically connected defendants could ultimately be held accountable.
After almost two years, justice seemed finally to have arrived.
It did not last.
6. “Two Years to Convict Them, Six Months to Free Them”, Missing Evidence and the Acquittal
A bitter phrase now circulating among Tigrayans captures what happened next: “ቀተልቲ ዘውዱ ጥፍኣተኛ ንምባል ልዕሊ ክልተ ዓመት፤ ነፃ ንምባል 6 ወርሒ.” “More than two years to find Zewdu’s killers guilty; six months to set them free.”
The convictions were challenged and the case returned for further consideration.
Then came another extraordinary development.
Critical digital evidence that had formed part of the original prosecution could reportedly no longer be found in the archived court file. The material reportedly involved telecommunications evidence connecting SIM cards associated with the defendants with Zewdu’s mobile phone, including technical information relating to phone activity and identifiers.
The court requested that the evidence be produced again. Police reportedly failed to reproduce it.
Without the material available in the form required by the reviewing court, the defendants were acquitted and released.
The disappearance of crucial evidence from an official murder file has become one of the most disturbing aspects of the case. It does not prove that Colonel Gebreselassie removed it, nor does it establish that the defendants or their relatives caused its disappearance. UMD Media has not independently obtained evidence establishing who was responsible.
But the disappearance creates questions that Tigray’s institutions have an obligation to answer publicly.
Who had custody of the evidence? When was it last recorded inside the case file? Who had access to it? How could evidence important enough to contribute to two life sentences disappear from an official judicial archive? Was an investigation opened into its disappearance? And why was the case resolved before those questions were conclusively answered?
For former judge Mehari Gebru, the treatment of Semhal exposes an additional contradiction.
While imprisoned, Semhal sought bail. According to the court document and account provided to UMD Media, the court determined that she should not be released until technical investigative material expected from federal authorities had arrived.
She therefore remained incarcerated.
Years later, critics argue, the justice system confronted a remarkably similar evidentiary problem, but this time involving men who had already been convicted of murder. Instead of waiting for the evidence or relevant experts, the failure to reproduce the material contributed to their release.
Mehari asks: if waiting for technical evidence was sufficient justification to keep Semhal imprisoned, why was waiting not possible when the consequence was freeing men previously convicted of Zewdu’s murder?
For him, this represents a “weaponization of law” — legal procedure operating harshly against the powerless while appearing far more accommodating when people connected to power are involved.
It is within this context that he describes those responsible as: “ብጣዕሚ ሕንቁቃት ገበነኛታት” — “Extremely spoiled brat criminals.”
The court’s position must nevertheless also be acknowledged. Public anger cannot determine criminal guilt. Judicial independence requires courts to acquit defendants when prosecutors fail to meet the legal burden required for conviction, however unpopular the result may be.
The Tigray Supreme Court has defended the judicial process, saying legal and procedural problems identified during review required reconsideration and that the lower court reached its eventual decision independently.
But a procedural basis for acquittal does not answer the separate questions surrounding disappearing evidence, alleged intimidation and possible interference.
7. Released and Out of Sight, While the Colonel Remains Publicly Visible
The defendants were released following their acquittal, but their present whereabouts are not publicly clear, according to information available to UMD Media.
People following the case have also alleged that documents associated with them, including photographs, school and university records, have become difficult to locate or have been removed. UMD Media has not independently verified those allegations and therefore cannot present them as established facts.
The contrast with Colonel Gebreselassie is striking.
Despite years of public allegations surrounding a murder prosecution involving his son and brother-in-law, allegations of pressure on investigators, extraordinary confrontations involving the judiciary and continuing questions surrounding the disappearance of evidence, he has remained publicly visible within Tigray’s security establishment.
This week that visibility produced a particularly sensitive moment.
Colonel Gebreselassie publicly spoke about preparations to secure this year’s Ashenda celebrations, saying the police and security apparatus were ready to maintain safety during the festival.
Ordinarily, such an assurance would be routine. Among supporters of Ashenda in Black, however, it was described as salt on the wound.
The reason is straightforward.
Zewdu was killed during Ashenda. Semhal survived but spent months in detention. The Colonel’s son and close relative were convicted and later acquitted. The case became surrounded by allegations of pressure, judicial intimidation and missing evidence.
Against that history, campaigners found it deeply painful to see the same senior security figure publicly presenting the security establishment as guarantor of women’s safety during Ashenda.
For them, the question is not whether police should protect Ashenda. They should.
The question is what protection actually means.
Security cannot be reduced to deploying officers, controlling crowds or guarding festival grounds. It must also mean that a woman can report violence without fear, that witnesses are protected rather than punished, that investigators can pursue politically connected suspects without intimidation, that evidence entrusted to the state does not disappear and that judges can work without threats.
The issue is also not whether a father should be blamed merely for the alleged conduct of his adult son. He should not.
The issue is whether a senior official accused of using institutional influence on behalf of relatives was ever subjected to a genuinely independent investigation, and whether Tigray currently has an institution sufficiently independent to conduct one.
8. “A Girl Should Not Wear Black”: Culture, Mourning and the Official Reaction
It is against this background that [#AshendaInBlack](https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/ashendainblack?__cft__[0]=AZhbNQ9xkdFQf5Ybn-jtKVHln31lDnAOgd3TrreWm4wp7oVyQbGJ_7Q878f4IXal6AlzKS34wCMeVRaF5EMsa-9wCb3Lqacq1jfzAgTFUotllLmbJpfIqf37B0ZAhDt10gbv9bAiFp0Js353zCWhSugyyoh4kY7vx6m7ss-ddkvkrKRUbWonFApJvDo&__tn__=*NK-R) has emerged.
Women and activists are encouraging Ashenda participants to wear black traditional clothing in memory of Zewdu and in protest against what they see as the failure of Tigray’s justice system.
The symbolism is deliberate.
Ashenda normally explodes with colour. Black turns celebration into mourning.
One campaign message reads:
“WE REMEMBER.
Zewdu Haftu is not forgotten.
Her aspiration lives in us.
Her memory demands dignity.
Ashenda in Black.”
Another captures the fear driving the movement:
“If the law can’t protect all of us equally, none of us is truly safe. Today it is Zewdu. Tomorrow, it could be you, me, or your daughter.”
The campaign has also produced a confrontation over who gets to define Tigrayan culture.
According to remarks recorded during a women’s meeting in Mekelle, a women’s-affairs official urged organizers to ensure that girls celebrating Ashenda did not wear black.
The official said: “ሓንቲ ጓል ኣሸንዳ ጸሊም ተኸዲና ክትወፅእ የብላን.” “An Ashenda girl should not come out wearing black.”
The argument presented was that black is inconsistent with Ashenda’s traditions. Activists responded angrily, asking why officials concerned about preserving the colours of Ashenda were not showing equivalent urgency about preserving women’s lives and access to justice.
Semhal’s recollection of Zewdu as an “Ambassador of Ashenda” has become one of the strongest answers to that argument.
If anyone loved Ashenda, Semhal says, it was Zewdu. She planned for it months ahead, wanted matching outfits, asked friends to style her hair and stopped along the street to play drums with children.
For women supporting the campaign, black is therefore not an attack on Ashenda. It is Ashenda remembering one of its own.
Campaigners have also expressed alarm over rhetoric portraying participation in Ashenda in Black as politically motivated or even as collaboration with forces hostile to Tigray. Activists say officials and TPLF-aligned figures have reacted with what they describe as panic, including attempts to associate participants with the federal government in Addis Ababa.
But campaigners’ response is straightforward: demanding justice for a murdered Tigrayan woman is not betrayal of Tigray; mourning Zewdu is not opposition to Tigrayan culture; and wearing black is not collaboration with Addis Ababa.
9. Ashenda in Black as a Peaceful Struggle for Change in Tigray
The significance of Ashenda in Black now extends beyond the Zewdu Haftu case. It is also becoming an example of what peaceful political and social struggle can look like in Tigray.
For years, major disputes in Tigray have too often been framed through armed power, military loyalty, coercion or accusations of betrayal. The language of change has frequently been dominated by those who control guns, party structures, security institutions and access to state power.
Ashenda in Black offers another method.
It asks no one to carry a weapon. It does not seek to defeat another Tigrayan by force. It does not require women to join an armed faction, support a military camp or wait for another war to rearrange political power.
Its instrument is a dress. Its arena is public conscience. Its message travels through memory, mourning, culture, social media and peaceful collective participation. A woman wearing black during Ashenda may appear to be doing something small. But when hundreds or thousands make the same choice, a private act becomes a collective statement that authorities cannot easily dismiss. Its power lies precisely in its peacefulness.
There is no armed group to defeat and no military target to attack. The idea travels from woman to woman, family to family and community to community. It creates pressure through legitimacy rather than violence. That matters profoundly in a region still carrying the devastation of the 2020–2022 war and again facing fears of renewed conflict.
Ashenda in Black raises a broader question: can Tigrayans struggle against injustice without destroying one another? The campaign suggests they can.
Peaceful struggle does not mean passivity. It can mean organized refusal to remain silent. It can mean women reclaiming a cultural celebration, journalists documenting abuses, lawyers defending judicial independence, families refusing to let victims be forgotten and citizens peacefully challenging official narratives.
It can mean transforming ordinary symbols into forms of civic resistance. A black dress becomes one such symbol.
Attempts to suppress it may only strengthen its meaning. Attempts to label it betrayal may expose how narrowly loyalty is being defined. Attempts to tell women what they may wear may demonstrate precisely why peaceful civic resistance is necessary.
In this sense, Ashenda in Black is not only a campaign for Zewdu. It may also offer Tigray a lesson in how political and institutional change can be pursued outside bullets, armed confrontation and another cycle of war.
10. What Does It Mean to Celebrate, and Protect , Tigray’s Women?
The Zewdu case has grown far beyond one murder trial.
It touches the police, the military, prosecutors, courts and political leadership. Most importantly, it raises the question of whether an ordinary citizen and a politically connected citizen stand equally before the law.
For many critics, the case illustrates what they describe as a wider system in which elements of the TPLF politico-military establishment exercise influence over institutions that should function independently.
That is a political assessment, not a judicial finding. But the accumulation of controversies, alleged pressure on investigators, threats against judges, military involvement in civilian policing, disappearing evidence and the continuing influence of powerful officials, has severely damaged public confidence.
Justice must not only be done. It must be possible for ordinary citizens to believe that it has been done without fear or favour.
This year’s Ashenda therefore poses a deeper question than how many police officers are deployed. What does it actually mean to secure Ashenda? Is Ashenda secure because police patrol the streets, or when a girl can walk those streets without fearing violence? Is it secure because crowds are managed, or when a witness knows she will be protected rather than imprisoned?
Is it secure because officials regulate public celebrations, or when investigators and judges can perform their duties without pressure from powerful political or military figures?
Ashenda will still bring girls into Tigray’s streets. There will still be songs, braided hair, jewellery and generations of women passing their culture to their daughters. But women participating in Ashenda in Black are asking Tigray to confront an uncomfortable contradiction. What does it mean to celebrate women for several days every year if women cannot trust the institutions governing them to protect their lives?
What does it mean to praise daughters in songs while a murdered daughter’s mother continues to cry for justice? What does culture mean if women cannot use that same culture to express grief? And what does the rule of law mean if ordinary people believe power can reach into the police, military and courts?
For these women, black is not the rejection of Ashenda. It is an attempt to give Ashenda deeper meaning. The black dress mourns Zewdu. It remembers Semhal. It remembers Zewdu’s mother, still calling her daughter’s name three years later. It remembers a father Semhal says died under the weight of grief. It remembers the girl who loved Ashenda so much that she stopped to play drums with children until her hands swelled.
It demands answers about the missing evidence. It asks why a surviving witness spent months behind bars. It asks whether allegations surrounding Colonel Gebreselassie will ever be independently investigated. And when the Colonel speaks publicly about securing Ashenda, it asks whether security without accountability can truly be called security at all.
But it also carries a broader message for Tigray: Change does not always have to come through bullets, armed confrontation or another war. It can begin with women refusing silence. It can begin with families insisting on truth. It can begin with citizens using culture, memory and peaceful collective action to challenge impunity. And it can begin with something as simple, and as politically powerful, as wearing black.
For those choosing black this Ashenda, the message is clear:
Zewdu Haftu is not forgotten.
The grief that entered her family’s home must not enter another.
Justice is still demanded.
Change can be peaceful.
And no one should be above the law.
Updated: In the second picture, Yared Gebreselassie, marked with a red arrow, is seen in court in 2025, accused of the killing of another woman, Mulubrhan Mekonnen Weldegiorgis.
Originally published on UMD Media Facebook on 2026-08-21T09:00:00-06:00. Source: https://www.facebook.com/getachew.UMDMedia