ESAT News (May 4, 2017)

Zeid Ra’ad

U.N. Human Rights Chief said on Thursday that Ethiopian authorities have rejected persistent calls for an independent investigation into the killing of protesters in two years of deadly violence.

Zeid Ra’ad, who is in Ethiopia for a three day official visit said at a press conference that the United Nations has been denied access to areas where security forces killed hundreds of protesters.

Last month, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said in a BBC interview that his government would not allow any international body to investigate the killings of protesters.

A government sponsored Commission said last month that 669 people were killed from June to October 2016. The country declared a state of emergency on October 8, and tens of thousands of people were detained since the martial law was put into effect. The government Commission in its report said the actions of security forces were “proportionate.”

Local opposition parties and rights watchdogs however say the figures of   extrajudicial killings and brutality by the regime security forces is way higher than as reported by the government Commission.

Ra’ad also criticized the country’s anti-terror law, which has been used by the regime to target dissidents and critical journalists.