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Ethiopia

Severe restrictions on civil and political rights in Ethiopia have persisted. Given the current situation, it is doubtful whether the upcoming elections on 23rd May 2010 will be free and fair.

Political freedom is severely restricted by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF); the political opposition has continued to be subjected to harassment, intimidation as well as to more traditional forms of repression over the course of the last six months. Several key opposition leaders continue to be arbitrarily detained, notably Birtukan Mideksa, the head of the Unity for Democracy and Justice( UDJ)Party who was initially amongst the group of opposition party members arrested in November 2005 after her party disputed the results of the local and parliamentary elections. She was later released in June 2008 only to be re-arrested after she refused to retract a statement in which she rejected having accepted to sign a governmental pardon in order to be released. Two recent killings of opposition party members have also raised concerns and questions about the political motivations of these killings. One such example is the murder of Aregawi Gebreyohannes an opposition candidate for the Arena-Tigray opposition party. He was stabbed to death by five men at his home in Shire, in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, on the evening of March 1st in unclear circumstances; the assassination has not been sufficiently investigated.1

Discrimination against women in Ethiopia is still widespread especially in rural areas, despite adoption of the National Policy on Women (1993) and the National Action Plan on Gender Equality (2006-2010). Harmful traditional practices like FGM, domestic violence, rape, early marriage, and abduction of girls for marriage are perpetrated in a large scale. Due to the huge gap between the legal framework and the reality on the ground, in most cases, discrimination against women is not adequately addressed by national authorities and the offenders face no prosecution or conviction for their acts, preventing women from legal redress.2

The situation facing HRDs in Ethiopia continues to deteriorate. The passing of the Proclamation on Charities and Societies (CS) and Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, the most restrictive of such laws in the region, are having a negative impact both on the work of defenders, notably its scope and nature, and on individual defenders themselves; recent research carried out by EHAHRDP reveals that at present independent human rights work in Ethiopia is more or less at a standstill.3 The CS law prevents organizations receiving more than 10% of their funds from abroad from working on human rights amongst other issues. In a country as poor as Ethiopia this provision is a death sentence on those NGOs who has been active in promoting and defending human rights. On the other hand, the government is trying to substitute the place of HR advocacy with its own affiliated parastatals. The law has so far been implemented in a very haphazard and subjective manner by the Charities and Societies Agency) established by the law. Registration requirements for the most prominent organizations have been increased, even for those deciding to stop human rights work and register as Resident organizations, calling on certain organizations to change the name of their organisaton and others to remove certain key activities, notably voter education and election monitoring from their mandate. In addition to being forced to drop the ‘Ethiopian’ from its name, Ethiopian Human Rights Council( EHRCO) was also forced to remove the “monitoring elections or providing voter education” from the list of organizational objectives stated in its statutes as a condition before it could finally be registered. Two of the most prominent rights organizations, EHRCO and the Ethiopian Women Lawyers’ Association( EWLA), both of which have decided to register as Ethiopian charities in order to be able to carry on their human rights work, have had their bank accounts blocked. Such powers are not granted to the Agency. Given that the Charities and Societies Board ( Board) which amongst other functions is to receive appeals by organizations against decisions by the Agency’s General Director has at the time of writing this report still not been established, organizations have no legal channels of recourse or review.

Press freedom in Ethiopia has remained severely restricted since 2005. Since 2009 the government has further entrenched a legal framework aimed at limiting independent reporting notably by passing the Mass Media and Freedom of Information Proclamation that stiffens penalties for libel and the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation that requires journalists to disclose sources and contains a very large definition of support to terrorists- which includes writing on groups deemed terrorist.The Ethiopian government has a long history of silencing the media. In March, the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) issued a code of conduct for the media restricting the activities of journalists covering the polls.4 The code of conduct bans press interviews with all candidates and election observers or voters. It also limits coverage from inside polling stations and disallows predictions before the official results are announced.

In addition, as a means to silence legitimate criticism and scrutiny, the Ethiopian government has in the recent past jammed the Amharic-language broadcasts of the U.S. government-funded Voice of America (VOA). Prime Minister Meles accused the station of engaging in destabilizing propaganda, and compared it to Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines, the Rwandan station whose broadcasts helped stoke the 1994 genocide.5 The same station was jammed in 2005 and 2008 and in both cases, elections were at hand. The jamming of the station also contradicts the country’s commitment to free press.

Public intimidation campaigns against independent journalists and activists are frequent. After facing constant monitoring by security personnel and an intimidating campaign in a series of articles in government papers, the Addis Neger, a leading independent newspaper finally shut down in December last year and its editors fled the country after learning that the government was preparing criminal charges against them based on the new anti-terrorism law.6

Furthermore, on 8th March 2010, the Ethiopian Supreme Court reinstated fines against four newspaper publishing companies over their coverage of the disputed 2005 national election. In doing so the ruling overturned a February 2009 High Court decision that had struck down the fines. Earlier on, a July 2007 presidential pardon had been granted to numerous journalists and political dissidents who were facing anti-state charges related to the elections. This also applied to the four publishing houses. The government later blocked two of the publishers, award-winning journalist Serkalem Fasil and editor Sisay Agena, from launching new publications.7