Ethiopia: Crackdown Spreads Beyond Capital

Ethiopia: Crackdown Spreads Beyond Capital
As Arbitrary Arrests Continue, Detainees Face Torture

(New York, June 15, 2005) ? In the wake of last week's election-
related protests, the Ethiopian government's crackdown on potential
sources of unrest has spread throughout the country, Human Rights
Watch said today. While international attention has focused on events
in Addis Ababa, opposition members and students in other cities are
increasingly at risk of arbitrary arrest and torture.

The current wave of arrests followed a chaotic week in Addis Ababa
that saw security forces put down a series of election-related protests
with excessive force. The disorder in the capital reached a bloody peak
on Wednesday, when security forces responded to incidents of rock-
throwing and looting by opening fire indiscriminately on large crowds
of people, killing at least 36 and wounding more than 100.

The Ethiopian government has refused to accept any responsibility for
the shootings, insisting that the opposition Coalition for Unity and
Democracy (CUD) was wholly to blame because of its alleged
involvement in organizing the protests in defiance of a citywide ban on
demonstrations in the capital.

"Opposition rhetoric may well have contributed to last week's unrest,
but the government must take responsibility for the conduct of its own
security forces," said Georgette Gagnon, deputy Africa director at
Human Rights Watch. "The security forces have killed dozens of
protesters and arbitrarily detained thousands of people across the
country."

Since protests over alleged electoral fraud in the country's May 15
elections erupted last week in Addis Ababa and several other towns,
police and other security officials have detained several thousand
people throughout Ethiopia. Many of those swept up in the initial
round of mass arrests in the capital and elsewhere have since been
released, but smaller-scale arrests targeting CUD supporters and
student activists have continued unabated.

The Ethiopian Constitution mandates that detainees be taken to court
within 48 hours of their arrest and informed of the reasons for their
detention. However, almost none of the people swept up in the past
week's arrests have been brought before a judge.

The situation of individuals detained in towns relatively far from the
capital is of particular concern, as little is known about their total
numbers, the reasons for their arrest or the conditions under which
they are being held. Local officials in many towns have cast a very
wide net, arbitrarily detaining individuals they suspect of being
sympathetic to last week's demonstrations. Most of these detainees are
locally prominent CUD members and students.

"Given the Ethiopian security forces' long record of detainee abuse,
there is every reason to worry that those arrested are being mistreated,"
Gagnon said. "This is especially true for those who have been detained
in towns far from the media spotlight that has focused on Addis Ababa
in recent days."

Human Rights Watch has obtained reports of mass arrests in at least
nine cities outside of Addis Ababa since last Monday. In Gondar, Bure,
Bahir Dar, Debre Markos, Dessie and Awassa, several hundred
students were arrested after police forcibly put down peaceful election-
related student demonstrations. Police subsequently released many of
those detained, but at least several dozen students remain in detention
without charge.

In addition, security forces in Gondar, Dessie, Wondo Genet,
Kombolcha and Jinka have arrested several dozen locally prominent
CUD members over the course of the past several days. Unconfirmed
reports of arrests following a similar pattern have emerged from
several other towns. Government officials have offered no public
acknowledgement of or explanation for any of these arrests.

Security forces have also continued to arrest large numbers of CUD
supporters in the capital over the course of the past several days. They
have also detained three investigators for the Ethiopian Human Rights
Council, all of whom had been working to gather information about
the continuing arrests.

Large numbers of prisoners are being held at the Ziway detention
facility, about 150 kilometers south of the capital. The total number of
detainees being held there is unknown, and the government has not
allowed any outside groups to access the facility. Some of the students
recently released from the Sendafa detention facility, 40 kilometers
north of Addis Ababa, after being detained last Monday reported that
they were forced to perform a series of exhausting drills and exercises
as a form of punishment.

"The Ethiopian security forces' long history of mistreating detainees
arrested for political reasons is hardly a secret," said Gagnon. "The
international community should call on the Ethiopian government to
immediately open up these detention facilities to international
scrutiny."

On several occasions over the course of the past four years, police beat
and tortured large numbers of university and secondary school
students they arrested following student protests in Addis Ababa and
in towns throughout Oromia region. Many of those student detainees
were kept in prison for weeks or months without ever being brought
before a judge. Security forces have subjected other perceived
dissidents to similarly abusive treatment and prolonged periods of
arbitrary detention.

Last week's bloodshed in Addis Ababa was also not the first time that
Ethiopian security forces have killed large numbers of protesters. In
April 2001, police killed more than 30 people and wounded an
estimated 400 more in putting down a student demonstration at Addis
Ababa University. And in May 2002, police opened machine-gun fire
on protesters in Awassa, killing an estimated 38 people.

To view this document on the Human Rights Watch web site, please
visit: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/06/15/ethiop11124.htm