Ethiopia: thousands remain in jail without due process of law

Protesters in Bahir Dar, August 2016

ESAT News (December 26, 2016)

Over a thousand people who were jailed last August in Bahir Dar and it environs following anti-government protests have not been brought to court, sources disclosed to ESAT.

Security forces rounded up and detained over four thousand people in Bahir Dar and surrounding towns last August in a deadly protest that saw the killing of almost 200 hundred people in Bahir Dar and Gondar.

The sources said about 1500 of the detainees have not been brought to court and have not been told what their charges were.

The detainees are reportedly suffering from various ailments due to lack of drinking water and access to health services.

Meanwhile, about 60 people in Woldia town, who were recently released with thousands of other prisoners, have been detained again. Security forces conducted the arrests saying the individuals did not undergo through a “rehabilitation program,” government’s indoctrination program given to tens of thousands of political prisoners jailed at the peak of anti-government protests this summer.

The government last week released about ten thousand prisoners saying they have completed the “revolutionary democracy” education.

Local opposition political parties estimate about 60,000 protesters have been detained in the last one year of anti-government protests.