Ethiopia’s state-appointed Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said on Monday that authorities have arrested people “on the basis of ethnicity” under a state of emergency that allows them to be suspected of collaborating with terrorist groups on reasonable grounds. Gives power to take into custody. The EHRC demanded that law enforcement “protect human rights and adhere to the principles of legality, reasonableness, proportionality and fairness.”
Several tigresses living in the capital said police would not explain why they arrested their family members and neighbors, including a young mother and an elderly priest. He said that CNN changes his name due to security concerns.
Rachel, 22, said her relative Nebyat, a young mother, was arrested along with 11 others at her office, a company owned by an ethnic Tigreyan.
“She hasn’t seen her 2-year-old in a week,” Rachel said, adding that she had visited Nebiat at the police station where he is being held.
Relatives were once allowed to bring her baby, who is still breastfeeding, into the station but were then denied access, Rachel’s brother-in-law Gebremeskel told CNN.
Rachel said she also witnessed the arrests of her older brother, Tekle, 24, and her cousin, Elem, 31, last Saturday evening. He told CNN that the police searched the house for two hours. “They kept saying you were hiding a gun in the house,” she recalled, but insisted there were no weapons in the property. When the police could not find the gun, they arrested Tekle and Alem and took them to a police station in Addis Ababa.
Rachel said no reason was given for her arrest.
This coincides with what the EHRC described as “people being arrested at their workplaces, homes and streets” in Addis Ababa and “being held in various city police stations”.
In response to CNN’s request for comment on the allegations, Addis Ababa Police Commander Fassika Fanta said police were only “arresting people who received funding and training from the TPLF.” Regarding Nebiat and her child, Fasika said that she was not aware of the incident and would look into it.
Another Addis resident, Sigereda, who asked that CNN use only her first name, said police had taken her father, a 70-year-old priest, three days earlier. He was released soon after reaching the police station. “They came and searched the house, but found nothing,” she said. “Then they took him, they said a police commissioner had some questions from him.”
He said the arrests of ethnic tigers had “become a common practice,” and were no longer a surprise to the community.
Fasika said some religious leaders had worked with the TPLF. “It doesn’t matter whether he is a priest or a Muslim religious leader, it is not the criterion we are used to,” he said.
Fasika on Friday denied that police were targeting people because of their ethnicity, saying they were TPLF agents who were paid and given weapons.
But he acknowledged that most of those detained were ethnic Tigrayans, while people of other castes were also detained. He said he did not have the exact number of people detained.
CNN is seeking a response from the Ethiopian government on the commission’s allegations.
Amnesty International made similar allegations against Ethiopia in July, saying: “Police in Addis Ababa have arbitrarily arrested and detained dozens of Tigrians without due process … the arrests appear to be ethnically motivated. , former detainees, witnesses and lawyers told how the police checked identity documents before arresting people and taking them to detention centres.
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