A group of civil society organizations are calling for an independent
and impartial international investigation into human rights violations
in Ethiopia, including the unlawful killing of peaceful protesters and a
recent spate of arrests of civil society members documenting this
crackdown.
DefendDefenders (East and Horn of African Human Rights Defenders
Project), the Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE), Amnesty
International, the Ethiopia Human Rights Project (EHRP), Front Line
Defenders, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), are
concerned about the levels of persecution and detention of civil
society members in the country. Since last month, four members of one of
Ethiopia’s most prominent human rights organizations, the Human Rights
Council (HRCO), were arrested and detained in the Amhara and Oromia
regions. HRCO believes these arrests are related to the members’
monitoring and documentation of the crackdown of on-going protests in
these regions.
On 14 August, authorities arrested Tesfa Burayu, Chairperson of
HRCO’s West Ethiopian Regional Executive Committee at his home in
Nekemte, Oromia. Tesfa, who had been monitoring the protests for the
organization, was denied access to his family and his lawyer, and
released on 16 August without charge. Two days earlier on 12 August,
Abebe Wakene, also a member of HRCO, was arrested and taken to the Diga
district police station in Oromia. Abebe Wakene remains in detention
with no formal charges against him. In addition, on 13 August, Tesfaye
Takele, a human rights monitor in the Amhara region, was arrested in the
North Wollo zone and is still detained without charge.
On 8 July, Bulti Tesema – another active member of HRCO – was
arrested in Nejo, Oromia. He had been working with HRCO to monitor and
document violent repression of the protests. Sources told
DefendDefenders that his whereabouts remained unknown for several weeks
after his arrest, until they found out that he had been transferred to
the capital’s Kilinto prison and charged with terrorist offences. He
has not been given access to either his family or his lawyer. The court
has adjourned the hearing to 12 October.
“New levels of violence are being reported in the crackdown on the
largely peaceful protests that have taken place across Oromia and Amhara
regions in recent weeks,” said Hassan Shire, Executive Director of
DefendDefenders. “Instead of investigating and holding accountable those
responsible for rights violations, the government is jailing the few
independent human rights defenders left working in the country.”
HRCO’s human rights monitors were arrested for attempting to document
the large-scale pro-democracy protests and the following violent
crackdown by the authorities in the Oromia and Amhara regions, as well
as in the capital Addis Ababa on 6 and 7 August. Amnesty International reported that close to 100 protesters were killed and scores more arrested during the largely peaceful protests.
Three journalists were also arrested and detained by Ethiopian
security officials for 24 hours on 8 August 2016 in the Shashemene area
of the Oromo region. According to the Foreign Correspondents’
Association of Ethiopia, Hadra Ahmed, a correspondent with Africa News
Agency, was arrested
along with Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) reporters Fred de Sam
Lazaro and Thomas Adair, despite having proper accreditation. They were
reporting on the government’s response to the drought in the Oromia
region, where protests have been ongoing since November 2015. Their
passports and equipment were confiscated and they were forced to return to Addis Ababa.
“Despite the systematic repression of peaceful protestors, political
dissents, journalists and human rights defenders, the absence of
efficient and effective grievance redress mechanisms risks plunging the
country into further turmoil,” said Yared Hailemariam, Executive
Director of AHRE.
In response to the on-going crackdown, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has called for “access for independent observers to the country to assess the human rights situation”. Ethiopia’s government, however, has rejected the call and promised to launch its own investigation.
Ethiopia’s National Human Rights Commission, which has the mandate to
investigate rights violations in Ethiopia, has failed to make public
its own June report on the Oromo protests, while concluding
in its oral report to Parliament that the lethal force used by security
forces in Oromia was proportionate to the risk they faced from the
protesters. Since November 2015, at least 500 demonstrators have been
killed and thousands of others arrested in largely peaceful protests in
the Oromia and Amhara regions and other locations across the country.
“The lack of independent and transparent investigation of human
rights violations in Ethiopia strongly implies that the Ethiopian
government’s investigation of the ongoing human rights crisis will not
be independent, impartial and transparent,” said Sarah Jackson, Amnesty
International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and
the Great Lakes. “It is time to step up efforts for an international and
independent investigation in Ethiopia.”
DefendDefenders, AHRE, Amnesty International, EHRP, Front Line
Defenders, and FIDH urge the Ethiopian authorities to
(i) immediately
and unconditionally release civil society members targeted for their
work and
(ii) facilitate access for international human rights
monitoring bodies including the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights (OHCHR) to conduct thorough, independent, impartial and
transparent investigations into the ongoing human rights violations in
the Oromia, Amhara and Addis Ababa areas.
For further information, please contact:
Hassan Shire
Executive Director, East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project
executive@defenddefenders.org or +256 772 753 753
Clementine de Montjoye
Advocacy & Research Officer, East & Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project
on advocacy@defenddefenders.org or +256 752 183 305
Yared Hailemariam
Executive Director, Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia
on yaredh@ahrethio.org or +32 486 336 367
Seif Magango
Media Manager – East Africa, Amnesty International
on seif.magango@amnesty.org or +254 788 343 897
0 comments:
Post a Comment