HRLHA’s Press Release

For Immediate Release

April 15, 2020

 The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) would like to express its deep concern over the potential outbreak of a deadly disease, Coronavirus (COVID-19) at Ethiopian prisons in Oromia Regional State where several political prisoners are confined in Federal concentration camps and police stations, in different Oromia towns including Burayu (west of the Capital), Ambo, Nekemte (Jato Prison) in Western, in Chiro, galamso, Deder town police stations in the Eastern Oromia. Most of the political prisoners are Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) members taken from different places including OLF branch offices and arrested.

Overcrowded and squalid prisons and detention centers risk becoming detonators for a major COVID-19 outbreak which will make the pandemic easily spread and harder to control. Infectious disease in prisons is a serious public health risk; inmates are crammed into small prison cells with many others. Even in facilities that aren’t deemed overcrowded, there is inadequate nutrition, and poor sanitation means that thousands of detainees in concentration camps suffer from health problems, putting them at particular risk amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The WHO and health specialists have repeatedly warned that contaminated hands too close to people’s faces will surely make prison facilities playgrounds for COVID-19.

At this crucial moment, when the whole world is fighting against the common enemy, COVID-19, politically motivated mass arrests, kidnappings and harassment of members and supporters of Oromo Political Organizations (OLF & OFC) by the Ethiopian government military must be condemned by the World Health Organization, UN Human Rights Council members and the world at large.

According to HRLHA reporters in Oromia, the major target areas of these most recent government-sponsored human rights abuses include Central Showa districts, Wallaga zone districts, and East and West Hararge zone districts.

Although it has been difficult to identify everyone by their names, HRLHA has confirmed that the following were among those arrested recently in Oromia different zones after the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country

 Recommendations to the Government of Ethiopia:

1. Stop brutalities being perpetrated by the Federal military and Security force  against the members and supporters of political opposition parties

•  The Ethiopian Government must stop politically motivated detentions and unconditionally release  all arbitrarily detained officials, members and supporters, of opposition political parties languishing in different official and unofficial detention centers

• The Ethiopian government must give priority to stopping the potential spread of  Coronavirus pandemic by returning its military forces to their camps and stop harassing citizens in their homes

• Investigate and bring to justice members of the security forces especially the Oromia Special Police who have been perpetrating wicked atrocities against political dissenters and innocent civilians

Copied To:

1.     World Health Organization (WHO)

Contact information

Avenue Appia 20
1211 Geneva 27
Switzerland

Email: hrhinfo@who.int

2.     Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

Contact information

Palais Wilson
52 rue des Pâquis
CH-1201 Geneva, Switzerland

Postal address: 
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland            

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