10 December 2017  (SOCEPP) –  Judging from the deafening international silence on the issue one can be excused for concluding there are little or no violations of rights in Ethiopia. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. The violations of basic human rights in Ethiopia have worsened in the last year with hundreds of dissidents killed, thousands jailed, torture becoming rampant, freedom of the press trampled upon and a climate of fear and terror imposed.

The silence at the international level and the lack of condemnation of the brutal regime in Addis Abeba is strictly political. The regime is a strong ally of those claiming to conduct a war against terror. European countries trying to deport back Ethiopian asylum seekers cannot b expected to affirm that the regime in Addis Abeba continues to grossly violate the rights of the people. The silence notwithstanding, the continuing peaceful protests going on all over Ethiopia have further sent the regime into a desperate frenzy of mass shooting, brutality and imprisonment of thousands in labor camps like Zwai, Dedesa,Bir Sheleko .etc. Dozens have been disappeared and ethnic motivated repression against designated ethnic groups continue without let up. As a final defense against defeat the regime has also resorted in earnest to provoking fights between ethnic groups as the ongoing manipulated violence between Oromos and Somalis clearly indicates.

Human rights in Ethiopia? One of the worst human rights violator in Africa is the regime in Addis Abeba. The silence of its international allies does not hide this cruel fact.

Condemn the repressive regime in Addis Abeba. Call for the freeing of all political prisoners and the respect of human rights in Ethiopia.