Amnesty: Ethiopia Systematically Repressing Oromo

FILE – Ethiopian migrants, all members of the Oromo community of Ethiopia living in Malta, protest against the Ethiopian regime.

October 28, 2014, ADDIS ABABA(VOA News) — Amnesty International has issued anew report claiming that the Ethiopian government is systematically repressing the country’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo.

Amnesty says the Oromo are subject to arbitrary arrest, detentions without access to lawyers, repeated torture and even targeted killings as part of the state’s efforts to crush dissident.

Claire Beston, the Ethiopia researcher for Amnesty International, said the East African country is hostile to any kind of dissent but particularly fears the Oromo for a number of reasons.

“[Reasons include] the numerical size of the Oromo because they’re the largest ethnic group; a strong sense of national identity amongst the Oromo; and also kind of [a] history of perceived anti-government sentiment,” said Beston.

Oromia is the largest state within Ethiopia. About 35% of the population is considered to be ethnically Oromo.

Oromo students protested in April and May against the capital city’s restructuring plan – which they said would dilute Oromo culture through annexing traditional Oromo land surrounding Addis Ababa. The rare protests led to violence. Several dozen people were killed and hundreds arrested. Peaceful Oromo Muslim protests in 2012 and 2013 were also crushed with force and mass arrests.

Beston said Oromo students and protestors are not the only ones who are at risk in Ethiopia.

“We’re talking about hundreds of people from ordinary people from all walks of life including teachers and mid-wives, and even government employees, singers and a range of other professions who’re all arrested just on the suspicion that they don’t support the government,” said Beston.

Amnesty International has not been allowed into Ethiopia since 2011. Researchers based the report’s findings on several hundred interviews with Oromo refugees outside Ethiopia and telephone and email conversations with Oromo inside the country. Many of the respondents said they had been detained in prisons, police stations, military camps or unofficial detention centers where they were subjected to repeated torture.

Amnesty has concluded at least 5,000 Oromo have been arrested and detained since 2011, many for weeks or months without being charged. The report said they are usually accused of supporting or being members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), an outlawed armed group. The OLF has been fighting for self-determination for more than 40 years. The report claims this is just a pretext for silencing dissent.

In response to Amnesty, the government – through the state-run Oromia Justice Bureau – said there is no clear evidence of violations as claimed by Amnesty and called the allegations “untrue and far from the reality.”

Beston said repression throughout the country, and particularly against the Oromo, is likely to increase as the May 2015 elections approach.

Source: VOA News

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