Security forces are beating and torturing the nearly three thousand people detained at the Tolai Military Camp. The detainees were incarcerated in mass in the ongoing anti-government protest in the Oromia region for political and economic rights that is well into its fifth month.
Quoting his sources, Berhanu Lenjiso, a social scientist who closely follow the protest in the Oromia region, told ESAT that there were 2,800 people detained at the Tolai Military Camp and the detainees were being beaten and tortured by the Oromia police and prison guards. He said, according to his sources, the TPLF officers were the ones directing the beating and torture behind the scene.
He said the majority of the detainees were from the Oromia regional state, but there were also prisoners from South Ethiopia, Gambella and Benishangul regional states. Some members of the police who were forced to perpetrate the torture against the detainees have begun challenging the instructions coming from the TPLF officers.
Meanwhile, the protest in the Oromia region resumed on Monday in Sululta town, few miles from the capital Addis Ababa. Seven students have been arrested following the protest, according to OMN.
In another development, a fire has reportedly broke out at the Haromaya University today. Students told ESAT that the fire engulfed four buildings, which were student dormitories. Students’ belongings were damaged by the fire but the sources could not tell if there were injuries to the students.
The University has been the center of the protest by the people in the Oromia region against years of marginalization by the tyrannical minority government. The University was partially open despite ongoing protests in the region.
(Picture obtained from OMN: Some of the protesters arrested in Sululta)
The United States Ambassador to Ethiopia, Patricia Haslach,
and the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, Tom Malinowski, joined State Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ambassador Taye Atskeselassie to co-chair the 6th Bilateral Democracy,
Governance and Human Rights Working Group.
The Working Group
provides an opportunity for representatives of the U.S. government and the
government of Ethiopia to discuss frankly the full range of governance and
human rights issues, the U.S. embassy said in its joint press statement with
Ethiopian government.
The discussion at
this Working Group addressed a broad range of issues, including election
related issues, the situation in the regions of Oromia and Amhara, the annual
U.S. Human Rights Report, the important role of civil society in strengthening
good governance, Ginbot 7, opportunities for media engagement and training, and
the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), among others.
The government of
Ethiopia reaffirmed its commitment to strengthen governance and political
pluralism in keeping with the principles enshrined in its constitution.
The government of the United States welcomed the frank discussion and
committed to support the efforts of Ethiopia’s government and society in
meeting these challenges.
At the conclusion
of the meeting the two governments agreed to increase the frequency with which
this forum and the in depth discussion it enables is held.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters)
- An Ethiopian opposition group said on Friday that police had arrested more
than 2,600 people in the last three weeks for taking part in land protests and
that the government was thereby aiming to deter future protests.
Plans to requisition farmland in the Oromiya
region surrounding the capital for development sparked the country's worst
unrest in over a decade, with rights groups and U.S.-based dissidents saying as
many as 200 people may have been killed.
An opposition coalition said the arrests over
protests in the four months up to February came despite government assurances
of clemency.
Representatives of the government were not
immediately available for comment.
Authorities scrapped the land scheme in January
and pledged not to prosecute the demonstrators, while Prime Minister
Hailemariam Desalegn issued an apology in parliament last month saying his
administration would work to address grievances over governance.
Despite the pledges, the Ethiopian Federal
Democratic Unity Forum (MEDREK) said 2,627 people have since been
"illegally rounded up" and remain under custody.
"It is an act of reprisal," MEDREK's
chairman Beyene Petros told Reuters.
"The whole purpose why they are increasing
their witchhunt is to simply stop the public from planning or initiating any
future public protest," he added.
The coalition said in a statement that the arrests took place
in 12 different areas of Oromiya, Ethiopia's largest region by size and
population.
The second-most populous nation in Africa with
90 million people, Ethiopia has long been one of the poorest countries in the
world per capita, but has made strides toward industrialization, recording some
of the continent's strongest economic growth rates for a decade.
But reallocating land for new developments is a
thorny issue in a country where the vast majority of the population still
survives on small farms. The opposition says farmers have often been forced off
land and poorly compensated.
(Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Hugh
Lawson)
US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski who traveled to Ethiopia on Tuesday as part of a follow-up on president Obama’s July visit to Addis Ababa had held discussions with Ethiopian government officials on issues of human rights and governance.
The US Assistant Secretary met with State Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Taye Atskeselassie to co-chair the 6th Bilateral Democracy, Governance and Human Rights Working Group, according to a press release issued by the US Embassy in Addis Ababa.
Details are scanty but on the agenda at the table was also Patriotic Ginbot 7, an armed group based in Eritrea, the ongoing protest in the Oromia region and public discontent and uprising in the Amhara region.
A major donor to the Ethiopian government, the US has been under criticism for not using its leverages on the tyrannical regime, one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists. An ally of the US against the fundamentalists in the Horn of Africa, the minority government has gotten away with extrajudicial killings, mass incarceration and attack on the press.
