Peter Pal Jola’s daughter said he left Kitchener, Ont., for Ethiopia in March for a short trip to hand out supplies.
Instead, the 67-year-old Canadian citizen never left the airport.
“He wasn’t planning to go for long,” said Nyarieni Pal in an interview with CBC News. “He was just going to go visit friends and family.”
Pal said her father planned to deliver some supplies to people in his hometown in South Sudan, where ongoing conflict and hunger have ravaged the population. Some of those supplies consisted of a few pairs of walkie-talkies that Jola bought online from Amazon, she said.
But possessing those devices, which are restricted in Ethiopia, resulted in Jola being charged with three counts of importation of military equipment, Pal said. Each charge carries 10 years of prison time.
Jola was originally told he could leave the devices at the airport and pick them up on his way back to Canada, Pal said, but that quickly changed once they found out he was transporting them to the South Sudanese border.
“It’s completely ridiculous,” Pal said, adding that Jola only wanted to help people scattered by the conflict.
“People were losing touch with their friends and family, and so they needed a way of communicating.”
What Canada can — and can’t — do
Pal said her father is being held at Kaliti maximum-security prison in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, where inmates need to provide their own funds for basic needs. That includes their own medication.
Pal said her father has diabetes and a suspected kidney tumour, and requires a cane for mobility after a car accident in 2022 that broke his femur.
“Every week, we’re sending probably between $300 and $400 Canadian to him,” she said. “That’s the money that’s used to pay for his food, water and I assume medication, although he’s never said that specifically.”
Pal said Canadian Embassy consular officials have visited her dad several times, but “they’ve made it clear that there is very little they can do in terms of getting involved in the judicial system.”
“Which I understand,” she said, but added: “It just feels like there could be more to be done.”
Aaron Shull is the managing director and general counsel at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo.
Shull said that when it comes to what the Canadian government can do in situations like this, “the answer is, not much.”
“They can’t force a release. They can support.”
He said that support can include offering consular assistance, advocating, engaging in diplomatic processes and trying to ensure there’s due process.
“Countries, like it or not, are able to pass whatever laws that they want.”
Ethiopia’s Information Network Security Agency (INSA), released an equipment import and export control list in 2022 after requests from United Nations agencies. It lists walkie-talkies among the 26 restricted items, which also includes GPS devices, security cameras and binoculars.
“To me, it’s a stupid law, but that law is on the books,” he said. “It sounds like this fellow is alleged to have contravened it, and so that limits very much what the government of Canada can do.”
CBC News reached out to Ethiopian authorities and the Ethiopian judicial system to ask for information regarding Jola’s charges and arrest, but did not receive a response by publication time.
Letter of support
Pal said her father had “absolutely no clue” that carrying walkie-talkies into Ethiopia was illegal.
“Otherwise he wouldn’t have done it,” she said. “My dad is a law-abiding citizen. He’s been in [Canada] for over 30 years now and he’s never had any kind of brush with the law.”
Despite being imprisoned for seven months, Pal said, her family remains hopeful — but there’s still a long way to go. After what she described as a bad experience with their first lawyer, she said they’ve retained a new one who shows more promise.
However, she said, what might be the most important factor in her father’s case, ahead of his next court date on Thursday, is a letter of support from the Canadian government that’s addressed to Ethiopian authorities.
The family has also started a GoFundMe fundraiser to help pay for Jola’s legal representation.
Global Affairs Canada declined to comment on the specifics of the case, citing privacy concerns, but said it is aware of the detention of a Canadian citizen in Ethiopia and is providing consular assistance to the family.
“We just really want the Canadian government to take this as seriously as possible,” Pal said. “What if this were an MP? What if this were somebody higher up in the government? How would we handle this?
“Would we just allow them to rot in prison, in a foreign prison at that?”
