November 15/2007

 UPDATE ON THE WORSENING HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION

The human rights situation Ethiopia shows the worsening of the violation of rights by the ruling EPRDF. From intensive repression in the Ogaden where the civilian population, especially children, have been subjected to terror and food and security deprivation to the cities where the free press remains gagged and banned, the situation is grim.

 There are still some 35,000 political prisoners in the country and the holding camps like Zwai and Dedesa are still accompanied by hell holes and secret detention centers all over the country. Many of these prisons remain off limits to local or international visit and scrutiny. In these prisons and other detention centers, torture is routine and brutal. A recent report indicated that hundreds of children are to be found in prisons all over the country. Children do not fare well outside of prisons too. The adoption of so called orphaned children (in most cases children with parents are sold out) has continued as a profitable business monitored by the officials of the regime. The laws of the country are ignored. Underage girls ply the streets and bars as prostitutes in a country where the infection by AIDS has reached the 4 million number. Young girls are sold out unto modern slavery in the Middle East where they are subjected to cruel and inhuman exploitation and racism. The recent publicized claim that dozens of political leaders held illegally in the kaliti prison have been released is used to cover up the fact that thousands more are still languishing in the dungeons and dozens are still disappeared (specially EPRP leaders and members detained since 1991).

 The regime has quasi absolute control over the media. The judiciary is only nominally independent. Ethnic discrimination is till the leitmotif of the regime’s politics and the discriminatory policies have led to blind repression against major ethnic groups like the Oromos and the Amaras. The perpetrators of massacres (as had happened in Gambella and is happening in the Ogaden) have not been brought before a court of law. The concentration of power in the hands of very few people, the spread of lawlessness and corruption in the ruling group, the overall climate of fear and anxiety, the rise in the number of the unemployed, of those without shelter and of the starving are all indication of bad governance and misrule leading to gross violations of the rights of the people at all levels. Actually, the regime has sent its soldiers to invade a neighbouring country and is committing atrocities against the Somali people.

 The ongoing gross violation of rights perpetrated by the EPRDF regime is condoned by foreign powers that appreciate its readiness to serve them as a battering ram for their war in the Horn of Africa. Emboldened by the support it is getting from abroad, the Meles Zenawi regime has refused to heed the call of SOCEPP or any other international human rights body. It continues to deny it is holding “even one” political prisoner and has renewed its ban on the free press and many political parties. The obvious arrogance of armed power does not militate well for the respect of human rights. Away from the hesitant regard of international agencies in the cities, the repression in the rural areas goes on with impunity and intensity. Tigrai, home region of the dominant rulers, is out of bounds and the prisons of Quiha, Makalle,etc, continue to be centers of intense suffering for thousands. No prison observation group has come to these places or to Dededsa,Zwai,Bir Sheleko,etc.

 The human rights situation in Ethiopia has regressed from bad to worse and there are strong evidences that the cadres of the regime have been the instigators of ethnic and religious strive that have cost the lives of hundreds of people. With the ruling front/TPLF-EPRDF/ as the economic power of the country the economic rights of the people have been denied just as their religious and cultural rights.

 SOCEPP will continue to denounce these violations of rights and to call on the world to raise its voice against the injustice in Ethiopia.

SOCEPP