school students had been arrested, so their
classmates had a demonstration to ask where
they were and for them to be released. I was
accused of organising the demonstration because
the government said my father supported the OLF
so I did too and therefore I must be the one who is
organising the students.”
Young man from Dodola Woreda, Bale Zone1
The anticipation and repression of dissent in Oromia manifests in many ways. The below are some of
the numerous and varied individual stories contained in this report:
A student told Amnesty International how he was detained and tortured in Maikelawi Federal Police detention
centre because a business plan he had prepared for a competition was alleged to be underpinned by political
motivations. A singer told how he had been detained, tortured and forced to agree to only sing in praise of the
government in the future. A school girl told Amnesty International how she was detained because she refused
to give false testimony against someone else. A former teacher showed Amnesty International where he had
been stabbed and blinded in one eye with a bayonet during torture in detention because he had refused to
‘teach’ his students propaganda about the achievements of the ruling political party as he had been ordered
to do. A midwife was arrested for delivering the baby of a woman who was married to an alleged member of
the Oromo Liberation Front. A young girl told Amnesty International how she had successively lost both parents
and four brothers through death in detention, arrest or disappearance until, aged 16, she was left alone caring
for two young siblings. An agricultural expert employed by the government told how he was arrested on the
accusation he had incited a series of demonstrations staged by hundreds of farmers in his area, because his
job involved presenting the grievances of the farmers to the government.
In April and May 2014, protests broke out across Oromia against a proposed ‘Integrated
Master Plan’ to expand the capital, Addis Ababa, into Oromia regional territory. The protests
were led by students, though many other people participated. Security services, comprised of
federal police and the military special forces, responded to the protests with unnecessary and
excessive force, firing live ammunition on peaceful protestors in a number of locations and
beating hundreds of peaceful protestors and bystanders, resulting in dozens of deaths and
scores of injuries. In the wake of the protests, thousands of people were arrested.
These incidents were far from being unprecedented in Oromia. They were the latest and
bloodiest in a long pattern of the suppression – sometimes pre-emptive and often brutal – of
even suggestions of dissent in the region.
The Government of Ethiopia is hostile to dissent, wherever and however it manifests, and also
shows hostility to influential individuals or groups not affiliated to the ruling Ethiopian
Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) political party. The government has used
arbitrary arrest and detention, often without charge, to suppress suggestions of dissent in
many parts of the country. But this hostility, and the resulting acts of suppression, have
manifested often and at scale in Oromia.
A number of former detainees, as well as former officials, have observed that Oromos make up
a high proportion of the prison population in federal prisons and in the Federal Police Crime
Investigation and Forensic Sector, commonly known as Maikelawi, in Addis Ababa, where
prisoners of conscience and others subject to politically-motivated detention are often
detained when first arrested. Oromos also constitute a high proportion of Ethiopian refugees.
According to a 2012 Inter-Censal Population Survey, the Oromo constituted 35.3% of
Ethiopia’s population. However, this numerical size alone does not account for the high
proportion of Oromos in the country’s prisons, or the proportion of Oromos among Ethiopians
fleeing the country. Oromia and the Oromo have long been subject to repression based on a
widespread imputed opposition to the EPRDF which, in conjunction with the size of the
population, is taken as posing a potential political threat to the government.
Between 2011 and 2014, at least 5,000 Oromos have been arrested as a result of their
actual or suspected peaceful opposition to the government, based on their manifestation of
dissenting opinions, exercise of freedom of expression or their imputed political opinion.
These included thousands of peaceful protestors and hundreds of political opposition
members, but also hundreds of other individuals from all walks of life – students,
pharmacists, civil servants, singers, businesspeople and people expressing their Oromo
cultural heritage – arrested based on the expression of dissenting opinions or their suspected
opposition to the government. Due to restrictions on human rights reporting, independent
journalism and information exchange in Ethiopia, as well as a lack of transparency on
detention practices, it is possible there are many additional cases that have not been
reported or documented. In the cases known to Amnesty International, the majority of those
arrested were detained without charge or trial for some or all of their detention, for weeks,
months or years – a system apparently intended to warn, punish or silence them, from which
justice is often absent.
Openly dissenting individuals have been arrested in large numbers. Thousands of Oromos
have been arrested for participating in peaceful protests on a range of issues. Large-scale
arrests were seen during the protests against the ‘Master Plan’ in 2014 and during a series of
protests staged in 2012-13 by the Muslim community in Oromia and other parts of the
country against alleged government interference in Islamic affairs. In addition, Oromos have
been arrested for participation in peaceful protests over job opportunities, forced evictions,
the price of fertilizer, students’ rights, the teaching of the Oromo language and the arrest or
extra-judicial executions of farmers, students, children and others targeted for expressing
dissent, participation in peaceful protests or based on their imputed political opinion.
Between 2011 and 2014, peaceful protests have witnessed several incidents of the alleged
use of unnecessary and excessive force by security services against unarmed protestors.
Hundreds of members of legally-registered opposition political parties have also been arrested
in large sweeps that took place in 2011 and in 2014, as well as in individual incidents.
In addition to targeting openly dissenting groups, the government also anticipates dissent
amongst certain groups and individuals, and interprets certain actions as signs of dissent.
Students in Oromia report that there are high levels of surveillance for signs of dissent or
political activity among the student body in schools and universities. Students have been
arrested based on their actual or suspected political opinion, for refusing to join the ruling
party or their participation in student societies, which are treated with hostility on the
suspicion that they are underpinned by political motivations. Hundreds of students have also
been arrested for participation in peaceful protests.
Expressions of Oromo culture and heritage have been interpreted as manifestations of
dissent, and the government has also shown signs of fearing cultural expression as a potential
catalyst for opposition to the government. Oromo singers, writers and poets have been
arrested for allegedly criticising the government and/or inciting people through their work.
People wearing traditional Oromo clothing have been arrested on the accusation that this
demonstrated a political agenda. Hundreds of people have been arrested at Oromo traditional
festivals.
Members of these groups - opposition political parties, student groups, peaceful protestors,
people promoting Oromo culture and people in positions the government believes could have
influence on their communities - are treated with hostility not only due to their own actual or
perceived dissenting behaviour, but also due to their perceived potential to act as a conduit
or catalyst for further dissent. A number of people arrested for actual or suspected dissent
told Amnesty International they were accused of the ‘incitement’ of others to oppose the
government.
The majority of actual or suspected dissenters who had been arrested in Oromia interviewed
by Amnesty International were accused of supporting the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) – the
armed group that has fought a long-term low-level insurgency in the region, which was
proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian parliament in June 2011. The
accusation of OLF support has often been used as a pretext to silence individuals openly
exercising dissenting behaviour such as membership of an opposition political party or
participation in a peaceful protest. However, in addition to targeting demonstrators, students,
members of opposition political parties and people celebrating Oromo culture based on their
actual or imputed political opinion, the government frequently demonstrates that it
anticipates dissenting political opinion widely among the population of Oromia. People from
all walks of life are regularly arrested based only on their suspected political opinion – on the
accusation they support the OLF. Amnesty International interviewed medical professionals,
business owners, farmers, teachers, employees of international NGOs and many others who
had been arrested based on this accusation in recent years. These arrests were often based
on suspicion alone, with little or no supporting evidence.
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