Freedom of Expression For All Ethiopian Peoples , NOW !
ሐሳብን የመግለጽ ነጻነት ለሁሉም የኢትዮጵያ ሕዝቦች ፣ አሁኑኑ !
Free all Ethiopian Jornalist and Political Prisoners, Stop the Persecution of Independent Press in Ethiopia,
We shall prevail! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!
FREEDOM,
FREEDOM !!!
Addis Ababa (AFP) – Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country, holds general elections Sunday, the first since the death of long-time strongman Meles Zenawi whose successor Hailemariam Desalegn is seen as all but certain to stay in office.
Over 36.8 million Ethiopians have registered for the polls, considered by the international community as a key test of the state’s commitment to bring greater democracy to the Horn of Africa nation.
Rights groups routinely accuse Ethiopia of clamping down on opposition supporters and journalists and using anti-terrorism laws to silence dissent and jail critics.
The ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has been in power for over two decades and is confident of a win, but insists the result will be decided on its economic record alone. Ethiopia is now one of Africa’s top performing economies and a magnet for foreign investment.
“There’s been improvement and people have seen that,” government spokesman Redwan Hussein told AFP.
“If they want to give us another chance they will vote for us. If they have a grudge, they will not give their vote to EPRDF. We will see the figures — but I don’t think we will lose many of the seats.”
Ethiopia, whose 1984 famine triggered a major global fundraising effort, has seen economic growth of more than 10 percent each year for the last five years, according to the World Bank.
Former Marxist rebel-turned-leader Meles, who died in 2012, was succeeded by Prime Minister Hailemariam, who has said he is committed to opening up the country’s political system to allow more space for opposition parties.
“It is an existential issue. If we do not have a proper multiparty democracy in this country, this country will end up like Somalia,” Hailemariam said late last year.
But the premier has also justified lawsuits taken against opposition leaders he accused of “links with terrorist organisations”.
‘Exceptional’ democracy?
The opposition accuses the government of using authoritarian tactics to ensure a poll victory.
“The political space has been closed,” said Yilekal Getinet, leader of Semayawi, the “Blue Party” in Ethiopia’s Amharic language and one of the main opposition parties.
“Many journalists, political activists, civil society leaders have been sent to jail or forced to leave the country,” he declared.
At Semayawi’s headquarters, activists claimed widespread intimidation by the ruling party.
“Our people are detained, harassed by EPRDF members and uniformed police. We asked the municipality frequently to make demonstrations, rallies, meetings and they denied us every time,” party activist Solomon Tessama said.
“The main problem is that the government and the party are not separate. The media, the security, the finances are under their control. On the ground, there are no free and fair elections.”
A official from the Agaw Democratic Party claimed that some of its activists in the northern towns of Bahir Dar and Gondar had been arrested or beaten.
Such complaints are dismissed as “baseless” by the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE).
“The situation is better than previous years. The environment created for political parties this year is exceptional,” NEBE president Merga Bekana said.
The Election Commission will deploy some 40,000 observers at 45,795 polling stations.
The only foreign election observers are from the African Union, which has sent a team of 59. The European Union and the US-based Carter Center, which monitored 2005 and 2010 elections, were not invited back this time.
Candidates from 58 parties are running for office, but each must go through a system of drawing lots organized by the NEBE to limit to 12 the number of candidates per constituency.
Critics say the system is designed to hamper the main challengers — Semayawi, for example, had 456 applicants, but only 139 were allowed.
The 2010 election was won by the ruling EPRDF in a landslide. The party and its allies took all but one of the 547 seats in the House of People’s Representatives.
The main opposition parties rejected the results, claiming fraud, but their appeals were turned down by the electoral board and the supreme court.
Those polls were peaceful, unlike in 2005, when the opposition’s accusations of irregularities sparked violence that left 200 people dead. The opposition won 172 seats in that vote.
Hopes that Ethiopia’s government would ease its crackdown on dissent ahead of the May 2015 elections were dashed in 2014.
Instead the government continued to use arbitrary arrests and prosecutions to silence journalists, bloggers, protesters, and supporters of opposition political parties; police responded to peaceful protests with excessive force; and there was no indication of any government willingness to amend repressive legislation that was increasingly condemned for violating international standards, including at Ethiopia’s Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Freedom of Peaceful Assembly
Security forces have harassed and detained leaders and supporters of Ethiopian opposition parties. In July, leaders of the Semawayi (“Blue”) Party, the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), and the Arena Tigray Party were arrested. At time of writing, they had not been charged but remained in detention.
The Semawayi Party’s attempts to hold protests were regularly blocked in 2014. Its applications to hold demonstrations were denied at least three times and organizers were arrested. Over the course of the year, authorities repeatedly harassed, threatened, and detained party leaders.
In June, Andargachew Tsige, a British citizen and secretary general of the Ginbot 7 organization, a group banned for advocating armed overthrow of the government, was deported to Ethiopia from Yemen while in transit. The transfer violated international law prohibitions against sending someone to a country where they are likely to face torture or other mistreatment. Tsige had twice been sentenced to death in absentia for his involvement with Ginbot 7. He was detained incommunicado in Ethiopia without access to family members, legal counsel, or United Kingdom consular officials for more than six weeks. He remains in detention in an unknown location.
Protests by members of some Muslim communities against perceived government interference in their religious affairs continued in 2014, albeit with less frequency. As in 2013, these protests were met by excessive force and arbitrary arrests from security forces. The trials continue of the 29 protest leaders who were arrested and charged under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation in July 2012.
In April and May, protests erupted in towns throughout the region of Oromia against the planned expansion of Addis Ababa’s municipal boundary into Oromia. Security personnel used excessive force, including live ammunition, against protesters in several cities. At least several dozen people were confirmed dead and hundreds were arrested. Many of them remain in custody without charge.
Restrictions on human rights monitoring and on independent media make it difficult to ascertain the precise extent of casualties and arrests. Foreign journalists who attempted to reach the demonstrations were turned away or detained by security personnel. Ethnic Oromos make up approximately 45 percent of Ethiopia’s population and are often arbitrarily arrested and accused of belonging to the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF).
Freedom of Association
The Charities and Societies Proclamation (CSO law), enacted in 2009, has severely curtailed the ability of independent nongovernmental organizations to work on human rights. The law bars work on human rights, good governance, conflict resolution, and advocacy on the rights of women, children and people with disabilities if organizations receive more than 10 percent of their funds from foreign sources. The law was more rigorously enforced in 2014.
In March, Ethiopia was approved for membership in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which promotes transparency on oil, gas, and mining revenues, despite the requirement for candidate countries to make a commitment to meaningful participation of independent groups in public debate on natural resource management. Ethiopia’s previous application was denied in 2010 based on concerns over the CSO law.
Freedom of Expression
Media remain under a government stranglehold, with many journalists having to choose between self-censorship, harassment and arrest, or exile. In 2014, dozens of journalists and bloggers fled the country following threats. In August 2014, the owners of six private newspapers were charged following a lengthy campaign of threats and harassment against their publications. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ethiopia is one of three countries in the world with the highest number of journalists in exile.
Since 2009, the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation has been used to target political opponents, stifle dissent, and silence journalists. In July, Ethiopia charged 10 bloggers and journalists known as the Zone 9 Collective under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation after they spent over 80 days in pre-charge detention. The charges included having links to banned opposition groups and trying to violently overthrow the government. The bloggers regularly wrote about current events in Ethiopia. Among the evidence cited was attending a digital security training course in Kenya and the use of “security in-a-box”--a publicly available training tool used by advocates and human rights defenders. Due process concerns have marred the court proceedings.
Other journalists convicted under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation-including Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemu, and Woubshet Taye-remain in prison.
The government continues to block even mildly critical web pages and blogs. The majority of opposition media websites are blocked and media outlets regularly limit their criticism of government in order to be able to work in the country.
The government regularly monitors and records telephone calls, particularly international calls, among family members and friends. Such recordings are often played during interrogations in which detainees are accused of belonging to banned organizations. Mobile networks have been shut down during peaceful protests and protesters’ locations identified using information from their mobile phones. The government has monitored digital communications using highly intrusive spyware that monitors all activity on an individual’s computer, including logging of keystrokes and recording of skype calls. The government’s monopoly over all mobile and Internet services through its sole, state-owned telecom operator, Ethio Telecom, facilitates abuse of surveillance powers.
Abuses of Migrant Workers
Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians continue to pursue economic opportunities in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, and other Gulf countries, risking mistreatment from human traffickers along the migration routes. In Yemen, migrants have been taken captive by traffickers in order to extort large sums of money from their family members. In late 2013 and early 2014, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, mainly Ethiopians, were detained and deported from Saudi Arabia to Ethiopia. Saudi security forces and civilians attacked Ethiopians, prompting restrictions on migration to certain countries.
Forced Displacement
Both the government of Ethiopia and the donor community failed to adequately investigate allegations of abuses associated with Ethiopia’s “villagization program.” Under this program, 1.5 million rural people were planned to be relocated, ostensibly to improve their access to basic services. Some relocations during the program’s first year in Gambella region were accompanied by violence, including beatings, arbitrary arrests, and insufficient consultation and compensation.
A 2013 complaint to the World Bank’s Inspection Panel from Ethiopian refugees, the institution’s independent accountability mechanism, continues to be investigated. Ethiopian refugees alleged that the bank violated its own policies on indigenous people and involuntary resettlement in the manner a national program was implemented in Gambella. In July, a UK court ruled that allegations that the UK Department for International Development (DFID) did not adequately assess evidence of human rights violations in the villagization program deserved a full judicial review. The judicial review had yet to be heard at time of writing.
Ethiopia is continuing to develop sugar plantations in the Lower Omo Valley, clearing 245,000 hectares of land that is home to 200,000 indigenous people. Indigenous people continue to be displaced without appropriate consultation or compensation. Households have found their grazing land cleared to make way for state-run sugar plantations, and access to the Omo River, used for growing food, restricted. Individuals who have questioned the development plans face arrest and harassment. Local and foreign journalists have been restricted from accessing the Omo Valley to cover these issues.
LGBT Rights
Ethiopia’s criminal code punishes consensual adult same-sex relations with up to 15 years in prison. In March, Ethiopia’s lawmakers proposed legislation that would make same-sex conduct a non-pardonable offense, thereby ensuring that LGBT people convicted under the law could not be granted early leave from prison. However, in April the government dropped the proposed legislation.
Ethiopia came for Universal Periodic Review in May 2014, and they rejected all recommendations to decriminalize same-sex conduct and to take measures to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Key International Actors
Ethiopia continues to enjoy unquestioned support from foreign donors and most of its regional neighbors, based on its role as host of the A frican Union (AU); its contribution to UN peacekeeping, security and aid partnerships with Western countries; and its stated progress on development indicators.
Its relations with Egypt are strained due to Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam, which will divert water from the Nile and is due to be completed in 2018. In 2014, Ethiopia negotiated between warring parties in South Sudan, and its troops maintained calm in the disputed Abyei Region. Ethiopia continues to deploy its troops inside Somalia; they were included in the AU mission as of January.
Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of donor aid in Africa, receiving almost US$4 billion in 2014, which amounted to approximately 45 percent of its budget. Donors remain muted in their criticism of Ethiopia’s human rights record and took little meaningful action to investigate allegations of abuses. Donors, including the World Bank, have yet to take the necessary measures to ensure that their development aid does not contribute to or exacerbate human rights problems in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia rejected recommendations to amend the CSO law and the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation that several countries made during the examination of its rights record under the Universal Periodic Review in May.
SOURCE http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/ethiopia
It is now solid one year since the arrest of Zone9 blogger and journalists. there had been 27 court hearings, 86 days of interrogation at the notorious “Meakelawi” interrogation center before they moved to their current detention place in “Kality” and “Kilinto”. during their stay they faced many rights violation. this rights violation had also been reported for the united nations working group for arbitrary detention.
On the commemoration of their arrest the summary of the rights violation was made public for readers and followers of the case of for the last one year. attached is the summary of the rights violation.