The violent regime of Meles Zenawi, which has incarcerated more than 50,000 political prisoners including dozens of journalists and opposition leaders, has now imprisoned Ethiopian Teachers’ Association leaders Anteneh Getnet and Wassihun Meles as part of its relentless repression against teachers.

In the secret and official prisons as well as in the labour/concentration/ camps like Dedesa, Bir Sheleko and Zwai the regime systematically and routinely practices torture. In the past, torture victims with their mutilated arms had been presented in SOCEPP and other communiqués. The physical torture is brutal and reminds all of the inhuman torture that the Meles Zenawi group/TPLF/ practiced while in the field. After torturing prisoners the TPLF "disappears" many because it "cannot release mutilated and amputated" inmates to "discredit it".

The regime in Ethiopia has violated all of its laws as well as international human rights documents it had signed. It claims to be against torture but it tortures prisoner both physically and psychologically. The beating of prisoners physically is done together with the humiliation of prisoners. Insults, denial of basic amenities and health care and toilet facilities, starvation are all used to torture prisoners. Detention centers or prisons are filthy hell holes and not one international body has visited these places at all despite SOCEPP’s repeated appeals.

End the repression in Ethiopia!

End the brutal and systematic torture of political prisoners!