JANUARY 6/2007

  DENOUNCE THE REPRESSON AGAINST ETHIOPIA TEACHERS

Ever since it took power in 1991, the regime of Meles Zenawi has been persistently repressing the Ethiopian Teachers' Association (ETA) in an effort to liquidate it. The chairman of the ETA was jailed for years, many officials murdered in cold blood (Assefa Maru is one example) and very many jailed, exiled, or forced to submit to a kangaroo court ruling. The ETA office has been closed, burgled, the association's property practiclly looted by the regime which had failed to set up a credible satellite associaiton to replace the ETA.

 SOCEPP has now learnt that three ETA officials have been detained and possibly subjected to torture by the Meles Zeawi regime. They are Tilhaun Ayalew, Anteneh Getnet and Meqcha Mengistu. Credible sourves allege that the three have already been subjected to torture as is routine with the EPRDF habit of dealing with dissidents or alleged political rivals. SOCEPP calls for the immediate release of the above three and for an end to the repression campaign against the ETA. The number of teachers udner illegal detention is in many dozens and the regime refuses to report on the fate of many of them. The preset regime,as that of the past, is charactetrized by its drive to destoy the ETA and all autonomous civic associations including that of the independent journalists. Many journalists are in prison on trumped up charges as are many teachera all over Ethiopia who refused to be divided along ethnic lines and to serve the regime.

SOCEPP