Professor Mulugeta Bekele: Physics under Repression

Born in 1947 near Asela, he entered science at a time when Ethiopia’s academic institutions were still fragile but full of promise. He studied physics and eventually became one of the central figures at Addis Ababa University, where his teaching shaped generations of students. Many of those students would later describe him less as a lecturer and more as a stabilizing force for Ethiopian physics itself.

That stability was tested during the turbulent years of the Derg regime. In the late 1970s, Mulugeta was arrested for his involvement in student political activity and spent years in prison. The conditions were brutal, marked by torture, isolation, and uncertainty. Yet even in confinement, he continued to think in the language of physics. In prisons like Maekelawi and Kerchele, he helped organize informal teaching and learning, turning punishment spaces into fragile classrooms where ideas still moved between people.