ADDIS ABABA(Reuters) - Dozens of university students protested in
Ethiopia's capital on Tuesday, demanding an end to police crackdowns that
followed months of demonstrations over plans to requisition farmland in the
country's Oromiya region late last year.
The government
wanted to develop farmland around the capital, Addis Ababa, and its plan
triggered some of the worst civil unrest for a decade, with rights groups and
U.S.-based dissidents saying as many as 200 people may have been killed.
Officials suggest
the figure is far lower but have not given a specific number.
Ethiopia has long
been one of the world's poorest nations but has industrialized rapidly in the
past decade and now boasts double-digit growth. However, reallocating land is a
thorny issue for Ethiopians, many of whom are subsistence farmers.
Authorities scrapped
the land scheme in January, but sporadic demonstrations persist and, on
Tuesday, students from Addis Ababa University marched in two groups toward the
embassy of the United States, a major donor, holding signs that read "We
are not terrorists. Stop killing Oromo people."
Such protests are
rare in a country where police are feared as heavy-handed and the government is
seen as repressive.
A government
spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ethiopia's Prime
Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has promised to address grievances in the Oromiya
region and says he blames rebel groups for stoking violence.
Opponents blame harsh police tactics.
"The aim was to
highlight the abuses carried out in the region," one student told Reuters,
saying he did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals.
"We waved white
cloth to indicate that we were peaceful protesters. But police started beating
us up," he said.
New York-based Human
Rights Watch said last month that protesters it spoke to and who had been
detained after the outbreak of demonstrations in November had been subjected to
severe beatings and never appeared before a judge.
The group said women
suffered sexual assaults and mistreatment. It said one 18-year-old student was
"given electric shocks to his feet".
Officials dismissed
the report as not worthy of comment.
The man, 27, said he was an Ethiopian national and has submitted an asylum application in Sweden, police spokesperson Lars Bystrom told dpa. Police and paramedics were alerted, but a check-up showed he did not require medical treatment.Stockholm - A stowaway refugee found on a plane from Ethiopia to the Swedish capital Stockholm survived the 10-hour journey via Vienna in a pressurized container in the cargo hold, police said on Monday.
He was discovered at Stockholm Arlanda Airport by baggage handlers unloading an Ethiopian Airlines flight that arrived early Monday, said Johan Live of Swedaviam, the company that operates the airport.
Police have launched an investigation into possible human trafficking.
Police evacuate passengers from the Ethiopian Airlines flight en route to Rome, which was hijacked and forced to land in Geneva. (Richard Juilliart, AFP)
In August, another stowaway from Ethiopia survived a similar journey in the cargo hold of another flight to Stockholm. He also applied for asylum and said via an interpreter that he had hidden in the cargo hold at Addis Ababa's Bole Airport.
The previous stowaway was in possession of a badge identifying him as an airport employee, which could explain how he managed to get on board the plane, the Swedish border police said at the time.
A woman and her child await medical attention in Oromia, Ethiopia, January 31. A severe drought and anti-government protests in Oromia have increased restrictions on press freedom in Ethiopia, according to a journalists' association.EDMUND BLAIR/REUTERS
Press freedom in Ethiopia is dwindling in light of recent anti-government protests and the severe drought in the Horn of Africa state, according to a journalists’ association.
Two journalists and a translator were arbitrarily detained for 24 hours on Thursday when reporting on the protests in Oromia, according to a statement issued by the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of East Africa (FCAEA) on Monday. Bloomberg correspondent William Davison and freelance journalist Jacey Fortin, along with their translator, were not given any reason for their detention. Their phones and identification cards were taken during the arrest.
Protests among the Oromos, who constitute Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, have been ongoing since November 2015 and were originally directed against plans by the federal government to expand the capital Addis Ababa. At least 140 protesters were killed between November 2015 and January, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). The Addis expansion plans were dropped in January but the protests—which have morphed into a general expression of dissatisfaction with the government among Oromos—have continued and demonstrators are stillbeing subjected to “lethal force,” HRW said on February 22. The Ethiopian government has said that “destructive forces” —including some from neighboring Eritrea—have hijacked the protests and would be dealt with decisively.
Davison told Newsweek that the risks of reporting on certain topics in Ethiopia is too high because of the threat of detainment. “It was a shock to be held overnight in a prison cell and not be given any explanation of what we were being held for,” says Davison. The “very heavy and militarized response” to the Oromo protests “raises the chance that reporters are going to be obstructed from doing their work,” he says.
The FCAEA said that the detentions marked “a worrying escalation” in Ethiopia, which already has a poor record for allowing journalists to operate freely. Ethiopia was ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in terms of press freedom in 2015 by non-profit organization Reporters Without Borders, which recorded six newspapers closing and more than 30 cases of journalists fleeing abroad in 2014. “Ethiopia is well-known for its tough stance on journalists but this is a worrying spike of arbitrary detention of media workers at a time of increased interest in Ethiopia,” says Ilya Gridneff, chairman of FCAEA. “Journalism is not a crime and those in Ethiopia should not be treated as criminals.”
Newsweek contacted the Ethiopian Embassy in London but was yet to receive a reply at the time of publication.
Coupled with the Oromo protests, Ethiopia is currently experiencing its worst drought in around 50 years, partly due to the El Nino weather pattern. Up to 15 million people in the country require emergency humanitarian food assistance and the United Nations is appealing for $50 million to help the government cope with the crisis.
February(ADDIS ABABA) – An Ethiopian minister has
accused leaders of a popular opposition party of having allegedly played a role
in instigating the recent unrest that rocked the Horn of African nation.
A
group of protestors carry placards in support of Oromia region (Opride.com)
Ethiopia’s communication minister, Getachew Reda claimed
that leaders of the Oromo Federal Congress (OFC) party had an active role in
instigating the deadly violence that erupted in larger parts of the Oromia
region.
He said some of the opposition parties in Ethiopia,
particularly the OFC, are very opportunistic and often take advantage of
situations.
He claimed the OFC was largely linked to people who were
long working with groups that had for a while been designated as terrorist
entities.
Getachew said there was a tendency by some in the leadership
of the opposition party to use both legal and illegal protest means in Oromia
region.
“Senior members of the Oromo Federal Congress party were
involved throughout the protests in western Showa and South western showa,” he
said.
The minister accused the OFC of backing such unrest to get
out of control and there by trying to take advantage of it to accomplish a
hidden agenda.
According to the minister, some legal opposition parties
particularly the OFC is using its legality as a pretext to accomplish missions
of other exiled outlawed groups.
“There is a growing tendency within the OFC itself to rather
focus on the violence aspect of their moves than to stick to a legal and
peaceful means,” he said.
The government has pledged to hunt down and bring to justice
all those perpetrators behind the violence.
Dozens of people, including members of security force were
killed and hundreds of others injured during the recent violence that began in
protest to government plans to expand boundary of the capital, Addis Ababa, to
parts of the Oromia region.
University students first began the protest in November, but
later on hundreds of farmers who fear could face eviction from their ancestral
lands as a result of the master plan joined the protest movement as it
continued.
“An organized and armed terrorist force aiming to create
havoc and chaos has begun murdering model farmers, public leaders and other
ethnic groups residing in the region”, said the minister on 16 December 2015.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn earlier said
his government “will take merciless legitimate action against any force bent on
destabilizing the area”.
Last week Human Rights watch accused Ethiopian security
forces of violently suppressing the “largely peaceful protests” in the Oromia
region.
The Ethiopian Human Rights commission is undergoing
investigation over the recent violence and the Ethiopian government couldn’t,
at this point, determine death figures.
Human Rights Watch said it has not been able to verify the
total numbers of people killed and arrested “given restrictions on access and
independent reporting in Ethiopia”. Almost daily accounts of killings and
arbitrary arrests have been reported to Human Rights Watch since this year
began. Activists claim over 200 people have been killed since 12 November, 2015
based on materials gathered on social media photos and web posts.