Arhe Hamednaca | |
|---|---|
 Hamednaca in September 2016 | |
| Member of the Riksdag | |
| In office 4 October 2010 –24 September 2018 | |
| Constituency | Stockholm Municipality |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1953 (age 71–72) Yiker,Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party |
Arhe Hamednaca (born 1953) is a Swedish politician and former member of the Riksdag,the national legislature. A member of the Social Democratic Party,he represented Stockholm Municipality between October 2010 and September 2018. [1]
Hamednaca was born in the village of Yiker in the Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation. [2] He is an Orthodox Christian. [3] Whilst a child Hamednaca witnessed many acts of brutality committed against Eritreans by Ethiopian Armed Forces and Highland Eritrean paramilitaries opposed to Eritrean independence. [3] He began helping Eritrean rebels fighting for Eritrean independence. [3] He was abducted and tortured for a month by the paramilitaries before his father secured his release. [2] [3] A year later,in 1968,Hamednaca,aged 15,joined the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) as a child soldier. [2] [3] The paramilitaries abducted Hamednaca's father,tortured him and kept him prisoner for years. [2] [3] In the late 1970s the ELF began to fragment and Hamednaca left the front line. [3] He left Eritrea in 1977,first moving to Sudan before arriving in Sweden in December 1984. [2] [3]
Hamednaca and his family lived in the Östberga suburb of Stockholm. [2] He studied at a Komvux whilst working as a cleaner at a kindergarten. [2] Financial circumstances prevented him from attending university. [2] He worked for Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL) from 1990 to 2002 and for Fryshuset from 2002 to 2010. [1] [2] In 2002,following the murder of Fadime Şahindal,Hamednaca founded the Sharaf Heroes organisation to help young people affected by honor crimes and change perception of women. [2] [3] He became a special advisor to Minister for Democracy,Metropolitan Affairs,Integration,and Gender Equality Jens Orback in 2004. [3] Hamednaca is a critic of the totalitarian government of Eritrea led by dictator Isaias Afwerki. [3] [4] [5]