Amnesty Says Ethiopia Detains 5,000 Oromos Illegally Since 2011

Posted by Natienael Berhe at 3:46 PM

Ethiopia’s government illegally detained at least 5,000 members of the country’s most populous ethnic group, the Oromo, over the past four years as it seeks to crush political dissent, Amnesty International said. 

Victims include politicians, students, singers and civil servants, sometimes only for wearing Oromo traditional dress, or for holding influential positions within the community, the London-based advocacy group said in a report today. Most people

were detained without charge, some for years, with many tortured and dozens killed, it said.

“The Ethiopian government’s relentless crackdown on real or imagined dissent among the Oromo is sweeping in its scale and often shocking in its brutality,” Claire Beston, the group’s Ethiopia researcher, said in a statement. “This is apparently intended to warn, control or silence all signs of ‘political disobedience’ in the region.” 

The Oromo make up 34 percent of Ethiopia’s 96.6 million population, according to the CIA World Factbook. Most of the ethnic group lives in the central Oromia Regional State, which surrounds Addis Ababa, the capital. Thousands of Oromo have been arrested at protests, including demonstrations this year against what was seen as a plan to annex Oromo land by expanding Addis Ababa’s city limits. 

Muslims demonstrating about alleged government interference in religious affairs were also detained in 2012 and 2013, Amnesty said in the report, titled: ‘Because I am Oromo’ – Sweeping Repression in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. 

Government Denial 

The state-run Oromia Justice Bureau said the findings were “far from the truth” in a reply to Amnesty included in the report. “No single individual has been and would not be subjected to any form of harassment, arrest or detention, torture for exercising the freedom of expression or opinion.” 

The majority of detainees are accused of supporting the Oromo Liberation Front, which was formed in 1973 to fight for self-determination, according to Amnesty. 

Senior Oromo politicians Bekele Gerba and Olbana Lelisa were jailed in 2012 for working with the group, which was classified as a terrorist organization by lawmakers in 2011. 

“The accusation of OLF support has often been used as a pretext to silence individuals openly exercising dissenting behavior,” Amnesty said. 

The bulk of Amnesty’s information came from interviews with 176 refugees in Kenya, Somalia and Uganda in July this year and July 2013. More than 40 telephone and e-mail conversations were also conducted with people in Ethiopia, it said. 

Some interviewees said they fled the country because of conditions placed on them when released, such as being told to avoid activism, meeting in small groups, or associating with relatives who were political dissenters, the report said. 

Amnesty has been banned from Ethiopia since 2011 when its staff was deported.

go to link http://www.dagmawitewodros.net/2014/10/amnesty-says-ethiopia-detains-5000.html

Two female Oromo refugees died and about ten others wounded due to brutal actions of human smugglers

By Boruu Barraaqaa

October 2, 2014 (Cairo, Egypt) — On September 10, 2014, about ten Oromo refugees were terribly loaded on a Toyota pickup to flee Khartoum, a city where the Ethiopian government thugs abduct any body they want at any time. When they started their journey from Khartoum, the refugees had a dream to reach Cairo safely, at least to get some security relief and enjoy a better life. Unfortunately, what happened to them in the middle of the Sahara desert on September 14, 2014, turned their dream untrue.

According to the information obtained from the survivors, the human smugglers who were illegally transporting these poor Oromo refugees were turned extremely violent for unidentified reason, just after crossing the Sudanese-Egyptian border. They tried to rape the female refugees, but the male refugees who were on the same vehicle opposed this attempt and combated the transporters, showing a relentless bravery.

It was in this scary situation that an unidentified police vehicle was suddenly emerged from behind and the transporters managed to escape hastily. They were driving with the highest speed furiously in the terribly windy and hazardous rocky desert, and finally tipped over. The result was so sad, in which two of the refugees namely Fatuma Mohammed Hundesa and Nahira Abamacha died instantly and about eight others were seriously wounded. Those who died were never buried properly, the report added.
A number of sources confirm that hundreds of female Oromo refugees have been raped, beaten, tortured, infected with diseases like HIV Aids and finally died over the last five years alone, while they were trying to find their way from different areas of Oromia to Khartoum. In last April, just in an area where this fresh sad incident happened, about eight Oromo refugees were captured by the Egyptian police, detained for four months and finally deported back to Ethiopia.

Currently, due to a developing tight diplomatic relations between the governments of Ethiopia and Sudan, Oromo refugees residing in Khartoum are experiencing day and night hunt by Woyane security agents. Fearing not to be abducted by these brutal thugs, they are forced to flee further to Egypt, daring the harsh clandestine journey of the trans-Sahara.