June 18, 2005

In the last few weeks, the ruling front in Ethiopia has detained thousands of people as part of a brutal attempt to end the popular protest against the alleged falsification of the election results by the government in place. Many of these have been taken to Shoa Robit and Zwai detention centers that have often been justifiably called concentration camps.

SOCEPP has called for the immediate release of all the detained while highlighting the following two cases for attention:

FIKRU GUDU: the police picked up a distributor of independent newspapers and he has disappeared since.

ANDARGATCHEW TSIGE: a former leading member of the EPDM or ANDM, one of the groups allied to the TPLF to form the ruling EPRDF, he was picked up by the police and is now expected to be in the Zwai camp. He had written a critical book on the ruling front and he had allegedly declared that all income from the book would be given to the opposition. The action against him and Fikru Gudu is a vindictive one and aimed at terrorizing others not to go against the ruling front.

The demand for the immediate release of the above two and of all the others rounded up from Jimma to Gondar and from Addis Ababa to Alemaya is made again by SOCEPP in light of the fast deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia. The violence and repression unleashed by the EPRDF against the people and the dangerous fanning of ethnic hatred and confrontation augur nothing but disaster for the country and the people,

Release all political prisoners now!