A Toronto airport employee has been held in an Ethiopian prison for more than five months after being removed from a homebound flight, with the country’s own human rights body concluding that police subjected him to severe physical abuse during his detention.
Esubalew Birhanie, 39, works as a ground technician at Toronto Pearson International Airport. He traveled to Ethiopia last August to visit relatives, but on October 4, 2025, was pulled off a Toronto-bound aircraft at Addis Ababa’s airport by a police officer and taken to a detention facility. He has remained behind bars ever since.
Ethiopian authorities have charged Birhanie with inciting terrorism and spreading disinformation and hate speech. The basis of the case, according to those familiar with the matter, is a video recorded at a community gathering in Toronto in 2020, during which Birhanie spoke about violence and displacement affecting Amhara people in Ethiopia’s Oromia region. Police have also referenced social media posts, which Birhanie denies belong to him. He is additionally accused of having ties to Fano, an ethnic-based armed group in the Amhara region that the Ethiopian government has designated as a banned organization.
Birhanie has firmly rejected the charges, arguing that speaking at a community meeting in Canada is protected under Canadian law. “The Constitution of Canada allows me to speak freely as a citizen,” he stated. “To be judged in Ethiopia for what I said in Canada is wrong.” He and those close to him have raised alarm that Ethiopian authorities may be systematically monitoring and attempting to police the speech of members of the Ethiopian diaspora living abroad.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission investigated his case and documented its findings in a nine-page report. The report concluded that officers beat Birhanie and caused significant injuries to his waist and ribs. It called for a full criminal investigation into the officers responsible and recommended that he receive compensation for both physical and psychological harm suffered. The report was shared with Birhanie’s family and legal representatives but has not been made publicly available.
Birhanie has described being stomped on and beaten in an effort to force a confession. He says police at one point offered to release him in exchange for a bribe of approximately $23,000. He later appeared handcuffed in a federal court in Addis Ababa, where judges acknowledged his complaint of police beatings before adjourning the case to a future date. His sisters, present in the courtroom gallery, were visibly distressed.
Canadian officials confirmed they are aware of his situation. Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Thida Ith stated that consular assistance is being provided and that Canadian officials are in contact with local Ethiopian authorities. Birhanie has said embassy staff visited him in detention and intervened in an attempt to stop the abuse. He has since been transferred to Kilinto Prison on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, a facility known for holding political prisoners and journalists.
Ethiopian government officials were largely unresponsive to press inquiries. A Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson said he was unaware of the case, while a police spokesperson said it fell outside his jurisdiction. The office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 following a peace agreement with Eritrea, did not respond to requests for comment. Since that period, the Ethiopian government has faced widespread international criticism over a devastating war in the country’s north, allegations of war crimes, and a pattern of detaining journalists, opposition figures, and human rights defenders.
Birhanie’s family in Canada described the ongoing ordeal as deeply distressing. “We are very stressed about his ordeal,” a cousin told The Globe and Mail. “He travels every year to visit his family, and we never expected that something like this could happen to him.”
Sources: The Globe and Mail (theglobeandmail.com) — reported by Geoffrey York, Africa Bureau Chief; Borkena Ethiopian News (borkena.com)
