SOCEPP: Hundreds of peaceful protesters are behind bars and, as usual, torture is extensive. Political activists like Bekele Gerba and Yohannes Tesfaye, journalists like Getachew Shifferaw, students both male and female, and many, many more are jailed. More than 84 have been killed all over the country.

The protest that started in Ambo against the so called Addis Abeba Master Plan has now spread to many more areas and regions as people fed up with the regime and angered by the famine that it wants to ignore or minimize have taken to the streets and taken up arms (in Gondar for example). The regime has complicated matters by dealing with the Sudan to cede more land to Khartoum, The speech by Haile Mariam Desalegn echoing the Sudanese accusation against Ethiopians and especially Amharas has also made matters worse for Ethiopian refugees in the Sudan.

The intensified repression has not up to now extinguished the flames of resistance. On the contrary, opposition is spreading and the closure of peaceful avenues pushing people to raise arms to defend themselves. The brutality of the repression by the police and armed forces demands firm condemnation. SOCEPP stands with the people fighting against tyranny.

Stop the repression!   
Release all political prisoners!
End the land grab and the ceding of land to the Sudan.