elected, without distinction or discrimination, and the right to join political parties. These
rights are also protected under international law.87 Any arrest based on someone’s beliefs or
the legitimate expression of political opinion is arbitrary and unlawful under international
law.88 Amnesty International categorises persons arrested on this basis as prisoners of
conscience.
Hundreds of members of Oromo opposition political parties have been arrested in Oromia and
Addis Ababa between 2011 and 2014, in large sweeps as well as in individual incidents.
Amnesty International spoke to a number of party officials from Oromo opposition parties who
reported arrests of large numbers of their members. In addition, the organization also
interviewed over 20 people who had themselves, or whose spouses had, been arrested based
on their involvement with opposition political parties. The opposition political parties report
members at the grass-roots level are particularly vulnerable to harassment and possible
arrest, though high profile members are also targeted.
opposition political parties. In some cases, security officers alleged links between
opposition political parties and the OLF and demanded information about the connection.
The pretext of OLF support is used in many of these cases to silence influential political
voices which could pose a – peaceful political – threat to the ruling political party.
The government’s intolerance and fear of dissent manifests in ongoing arrests of members
and supporters of opposition political parties but there appears to be an increase in this
pattern around elections. An OFC opposition political party official told Amnesty International
he believes the large number of opposition members arrested in sweeps in 2014 and 2011
were in part election-related. Some people interviewed by Amnesty International reported
their problems with the government stemmed from involvement with an opposition political
party at the time of the 2010 and 2005 elections. A number of cases were reported of
opposition political party members being arrested around both the 2005 and 2010 elections,
because of their peaceful and legitimate activities, and not being released until the elections
were over:
“My father was detained in Malka Wakena [military camp] from 2005
to 2010 because he supported Oromo National Congress (ONC)
.89 He
was released in 2010 but soon arrested again because he was accused
of still campaigning for that party. I tried to search for him but the
authorities warned that if I made efforts to find him, I would face
consequences. I couldn’t trace him since then. But the police
continued to threaten me saying we are still supporting ONC. This
lasted for more than two years after the election was finished.”SWEEPS OF OPPOSITION POLITICAL PARTY MEMBERS IN 2014 AND 2011
2014 and 2011 saw large sweeps targeting Oromo opposition political party members, with
hundreds being arrested over a short period.
In the wake of the April and May 2014 ‘Master Plan’ protests across Oromia, the OFC
opposition political party reported that between 350 and 500 of their members had been
arrested in May, June and July 2014.91 Arrests were reported to have taken place in a
number of places including Kelem Wallega, Gimbi, Ambo and Dembi Dollo. Local leadership
of the opposition political party, including party representatives and committee members,
were among those arrested.
The OFC also reported that, in June 2014, its office in Dembi Dollo had been broken into
and membership details taken. An OFC official alleged arrests were subsequently made on
the basis of the membership list.92
The party reported that over 200 further arrests, including of OFC members and other people,
had taken place in mid-September 2014, and more still in early October, including several
local officials of the party.93 Hundreds of high-school students, farmers and others were also
reportedly arrested in early October as mentioned in the section on ‘Peaceful protestors’
above. At time of writing a number of the local party officials were reported to be detained
incommunicado, without access to lawyers or family members, and had not been taken to
court. The party also reported that membership documents had been taken from its office in
Darimu woreda in Illubabor Zone at the beginning of October.
By early October 2014, the OFC reported that some of its members who had been arrested in
the wake of the protests had been released on bail, some had been released without charge,
while others continued to be detained without charge.94 Some OFC members, as well as
students and other people, had been convicted in rapid trials on charges relating to the
protests, including a group in Ambo reportedly convicted in late September and sentenced to
periods of imprisonment ranging from one year to six years. The OFC said some of the
charges involved theft and similar crimes during the unrest, which the party maintained were
false allegations. Others were reportedly charged with ‘inciting unrest to overthrow the
government,’ including at least one OFC member, according to a party official.95
The OFC leadership believes the ‘Master Plan’ protests were being used by the government as
a pretext to begin large-scale harassment and silencing of OFC members before the 2015
general elections.
Large-scale arrests also took place in 2011. In March and April of that year, between 200
and 300 people were arrested in sweeps in Oromia and in Addis Ababa.96 Arrests were
reported from towns across the region, including Moyale, Jimma, Harar and Nekemte.
Amongst those arrested were at least 89 members of the two largest Oromo opposition
political parties – the Oromo People’s Congress (OPC) and the Oromo Federalist Democratic
Movement (OFDM).97 As documented above, during the same period, large numbers of
students were also arrested across Oromia.98 The arrests were apparently an attempt to
discourage the Middle East and North Africa uprisings from being replicated in Ethiopia. The
89 members of the two opposition political parties who were arrested were accused of
supporting the OLF, charged and tried – discussed later in this report in the section ‘Unfairtrial.’ The defendants were accused of various forms of participation in the OLF, including
making financial contributions, participating in or conducting training and recruiting others.
Amnesty International believes the accusation of OLF support was a pretext to target
influential members of opposition political parties and to warn their members. Many of the
OFDM and OPC members arrested had been members of the national parliament or of the
Oromia regional assembly from 2005-10 and had also stood unsuccessfully for re-election in
the 2010 elections.99 A number of youth and student members of the two opposition political
parties, including a 17-year-old female OFDM supporter, were also arrested in the March and
April 2011 sweeps.
Further arrests in Oromia occurred in late August and early September 2011, including 29
arrests reported to have taken place on 27 August 2011 alone. At least nine OFDM and OPC
members were among those arrested, including two senior members of the opposition
political parties – Bekele Gerba and Olbana Lelisa – see below.
In the wake of the arrests, opposition political parties and some family members reported
they did not know the whereabouts of some of those arrested. The missing persons were
presumed to be in arbitrary, incommunicado detention.
Subsequently, three cases featuring OFDM and OPC members arrested between March and
August 2011 were grouped together and charged – one group of 69, charged in May 2011,
one group of 20, charged in June 2011, and one group of nine, including Bekele Gerba and
Olbana Lelisa, charged in October 2011. The latter trial concluded in 2012 – see below. The
trials of the two remaining groups did not conclude until early 2014 – three years after the
arrests. It has not been possible to establish full details of the outcome of these two trials,
but, according to information received by Amnesty International, some defendants in both
trials were found not guilty and released, having spent three years in detention. Others were
given sentences ranging from one to 13 years’ imprisonment. Amongst those, some were
ruled by the court to have already served their sentence and were released.
BEKELE GERBA AND OLBANA LELISA – ARRESTED OPPOSITION POLITICAL PARTY LEADERS
Among those arrested in August 2011, were two key figures from the two opposition political
parties. Bekele Gerba, an English teacher at Addis Ababa University and deputy chair of the
OFDM, and Olbana Lelisa, an OPC party official said by the party to have been popular with
young people, were arrested on 27 August 2011, within days of meeting with Amnesty
International delegates.100 The Amnesty International delegates were ordered to leave the
country on the same day the arrests took place. Amnesty International believes the arrests
were part of the same crackdown based on the government’s heightened nervousness about
political opposition that year. The two men were subsequently charged, alongside seven other
people, under a group of charges in the Criminal Code often used in the past against Oromos
accused of supporting the OLF – ‘Crimes against the Constitutional Order and the Internal
Security of the State.’101 Both were initially charged under Article 241 of the Criminal Code
‘Attack on the Political or Territorial Integrity of the State,’ although at a later date Bekele
Gerba’s charges were reduced to the less serious charge of Article 257 ‘Provocation and
Preparation’ to commit the same. At least two of the other defendants on trial with Bekele
Gerba and Olbana Lelisa were also OPC members.In November 2012, they were found guilty and, in a subsequent sentencing hearing, Olbana
Lelisa was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment and Bekele Gerba to eight years’
imprisonment. In June 2013, these sentences were reduced on appeal by the Supreme Court
to 11 years and three years and seven months respectively.
Their detention and trial were marred by irregularities, including the denial of access to
family members and legal representatives during the initial stages of detention in both
Maikelawi and, later, Kaliti prison. Their lawyer also reported difficulties visiting them in
prison at some points during their trial. According to information received by Amnesty
International, there were also inconsistencies in their trial, including with the validity and
admissibility of some witness statements and the limited evidence presented against the two
men. Amnesty International believes Bekele Gerba and Olbana Lelisa are prisoners of
conscience, prosecuted and convicted based on their peaceful opposition to the government,
and should be released immediately and unconditionally.
OTHER ARRESTS OF OPPOSITION POLITICAL PARTY SUPPORTERS
Amnesty International also interviewed a number of people harassed or arrested in individual
incidents based on their connection or alleged connection to opposition political parties. A
young man whose father had been arrested in 2005 for his support of the ONC and again in
2010, after which his family did not know his whereabouts or his fate, continued to suffer
himself based on his presumed political opinion:
“After the death of the Prime Minister [Meles Zenawi, in August 2012],
I didn’t attend where people were forced to mourn. I was arrested by
the police and first taken to the police station, then to the prison in
Shashemene. They accused me of not mourning Meles because, like
my father, I supported the OPC.102 I was detained for eight months and
25 days and never taken to court. I was interrogated on the support I
was giving to the OPC. I was released on condition to provide the
documents they said my father hid belonging to OPC, including his
party ID and documents that showed the donations he made to the
party. I was given two days to produce these to the police and told if I
did not I would face severe consequences.”103
One man interviewed by Amnesty International had been a candidate for the ONC in eastern
Hararghe during the 2005 elections. After sustained harassment, he fled the country in 2006
and sought asylum in Somaliland. In 2012, he was kidnapped from Somaliland and forcibly
returned to Ethiopia where he was detained arbitrarily, interrogated and tortured in a small
military camp before being transferred to a larger camp in Harar. He told Amnesty
International:
“In Harar, they interrogated me about who of the ONC104 candidates
were connected with the OLF. They said ‘tell us the people you
organised for that crime,’ and tried to force me to tell them the names
of OLF representatives in Hargeisa [Somaliland]. They said you ONC
party are receiving assistance directly from OLF, so tell us, who has
linkages, like you, or others.”An OPC candidate in the 2010 elections said he continued to be harassed by the security
services after the poll and was eventually arrested in 2011:
“After the election, they were still trying to make me join their party. I
told them how can I, when I already have my own party. On 10 June
2011, I was taken from my workplace and taken to Maikelawi. I spent
the next four and a half months in detention.
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