(This report covers the period January-December 1997)

Hundreds of critics and opponents of the government were arrested, including prisoners of conscience. Some were tried but most were detained without charge or trial. Thousands of political prisoners arrested in earlier years remained in detention without charge or trial. The trial of 46 former government members continued and preliminary trial proceedings started against over 2,000 other former government or party officials. Torture of government opponents was reported, as well as "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions. Several death sentences were imposed by courts but no executions were reported.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government continued to face armed opposition throughout the year, particularly from the Oromo Liberation Front (olf) in the Oromia region and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (onlf) in the Somali region. There were several violent clashes in the Amhara region and certain other regions, some involving opponents based in Sudan. There were also several bombings in Addis Ababa, the capital, Dire Dawa and Harar, causing civilian casualties. Ethiopian troops crossed into Somalia's Gedo region to suppress the Al-Itihad (Islamist) armed opposition group based there which had claimed responsibility for bombings in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia remained one of only two African states not to have ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.

Dozens of journalists from the independent press in Addis Ababa were arrested for criticizing the government and held under the Press Law (1993), which penalizes offences such as "publishing false information in order to incite war and unrest". They were prisoners of conscience. Arega Wolde-Kirkos of Tobia newspaper was arrested in January but provisionally released after eight weeks. Tolera Tessema of Medda Welabu newspaper was arrested in April and sentenced to one year's imprisonment. Solomon Namara and Tesfaye Deressa of Urji newspaper were arrested in September, provisionally released but rearrested in October. Their first arrest was for criticizing conditions in a hospital in Addis Ababa, the second seemed to be for questioning the official account of the killing of three alleged olf members (see below).

Two bahtawi (independent hermit preachers) were arrested in January in connection with a petition which was presented to the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church at St Stephanos Church in Addis Ababa by a hermit who was shot dead by police. The two detained hermits, Gebre-Meskel Haile-Meskel, director of a humanitarian organization, and Sofonias Gume, were kept in prison until December despite earlier court orders for their release. They were prisoners of conscience

Hundreds of members of the Oromo ethnic group (or "nationality") were detained during the year and accused of involvement with the olf. Wako Tola, a schoolteacher in Addis Ababa, and Worku Mulata, an engineer working for an Oromo community project, were detained in February and accused of links with the olf. Wako Tola died in custody on 30 March. Worku Mulata was still detained without charge at the end of the year. Both were prisoners of conscience. Some 20 prominent Oromos in Addis Ababa were detained in early November and accused of involvement with bombings, allegedly carried out by three captured olf fighters, in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa earlier in the year. Among the detainees were seven officials of the Human Rights League, a newly established Oromo human rights organization, who were prisoners of conscience. They included Beyene Abdi, aged 72, a former parliamentarian and retired judge; Beyene Belissa, a telecommunic-ations manager; Gabissa Lemessa, an accountant for Save the Children Fund and former prisoner of conscience and torture survivor in the 1980s; and Addisu Beyene, General Secretary of the Oromo Relief Association, which had earlier been closed down by the government

In December they were charged with armed conspiracy.

Over 200 university students were detained in Addis Ababa in March after a peaceful demonstration which the government declared illegal. They were supporting protests by peasant farmers whose land had been confiscated because of their association with the former government. The students were all released without charge by May

Among hundreds of people arrested in the Somali region on account of suspected links with the onlf were three former district governors – Bashir Sheikh Abdi, Mohamed Ahmed Sheikh Abdi and Yusuf Muhumed Moallim. They were detained in April in Dire Dawa and were still held incommunicado and without charge by the end of the year.

Scores of Ethiopian Somalis, as well as refugees from Somalia, were detained without charge or trial for alleged involvement in bombings attributed to Somali opponents. Dr Umar Elmi Duhod, a British citizen, was detained in Harar in February with other guests at a hotel which was bombed. He was held without charge for six weeks. In December, 14 alleged members of Al-Itihad were charged with these bombings.

Some political prisoners detained in 1996 or earlier (see Amnesty International Report 1997) were released during 1997. They included journalists such as Terefe Mengesha and Solomon Lemma, who served prison sentences imposed in 1996. Numerous other journalists arrested in 1996 and 1997 were provisionally released. Abate Angore, an official of the Ethiopian Teachers Association (eta), was freed in March. Some olf suspects were released, including Bayera Mideksa, a pharmacist imprisoned since 1992. Among some onlf suspects released were Ali Bashe Abdi and nine other members of the Somali region Assembly who were detained in 1996. Muhyadin Muftah, a leader of the armed opposition Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, who had been forcibly returned from Djibouti in 1996, was released in mid-1997. Svetlana Mamedova, a naturalized Ethiopian citizen of Georgian origin, was released and deported in June after a total of nearly three years' detention without charge in connection with a business case involving the government

The former vice-president of the Somali region, Ahmed Makahil Hussein, a prisoner of conscience arrested in 1995, was provisionally released in December, pending his appeal hearing. He had been convicted of armed conspiracy and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with hard labour in a summary and unfair trial in Jijiga in May. He had been refused legal defence rights and there was no credible evidence against him.

Thousands of political prisoners held since 1996 or earlier, some possibly prisoners of conscience, remained in detention, mostly without charge or trial. Most were held in regional prisons and accused of being members or supporters of armed opposition groups. They included Mengesha Dogoma, a southern politician held since 1992; two female Oromo folk-singers, Baharsitu Obsa and Shabbe Sheko, arrested in 1996; Hussein Ahmed Aydrus and other onlf suspects forcibly deported from Djibouti in 1996; Abdullahi Haliye and two other onlf members deported from Somaliland and held in Harar prison at the end of the year despite a court order for their release in May; and Mohamoud Muhumed Hashi, a prisoner of conscience, former university lecturer and vice-chairman of the Ogaden Welfare Society, who was detained again in November 1996, a few months after being released from two years' detention without trial. Suspected members of other clandestine opposition groups, such as the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party, also remained in detention without charge or trial

In four long-running trials of government opponents (see Amnesty International Report 1997) there was concern whether defendants were receiving fair trials. In the trial of Professor Asrat Woldeyes, chairman of the All-Amhara People's Organization, and 31 others, charges against seven defendants were dropped in mid-trial. However, the judges continued to accept several defendants' earlier admissions of guilt despite their retractions and claims that they had made them as a result of torture. Asrat Woldeyes and other defendants appeared to be prisoners of conscience

Some charges were dropped in the armed conspiracy trial of Taye Woldesmayat, a former university professor and chairman of eta (which the government was seeking to close down), and five other defendants. However, the judges appeared to accept the main prosecution evidence from a former defendant in the trial. The defendants appeared to be prisoners of conscience

Another armed conspiracy trial continued of 38 Muslim leaders, mostly members of the Supreme Islamic Council, including Imam Mohamed Ahmed Wale and Mohamed Abdu Tuku, a professor of engineering. All appeared to be prisoners of conscience. The prosecution brought no substantial evidence that they had instigated violence at the Anwar mosque in 1995 when government troops killed at least 31 people. The court dropped all charges against 32 of the defendants, including Mohamed Abdu Tuku, in November.

The trial in Ziwai of more than 285 armed members of the olf detained since 1992 was adjourned for most of the year.

The trial for genocide of 46 members of the former military government (known as the Dergue) headed by Mengistu Haile-Mariam, which began in 1994, was still continuing in the High Court. By the end of the year over 400 prosecution witnesses had testified to the former government's 17-year record of extrajudicial executions, "disappearances", war crimes, torture and arbitrary detentions

In February the Special Prosecutor's Office announced that 2,246 other officials of the former government were still detained and had all been charged. Their names and charges were not disclosed but they were gradually brought to court and informed of the charges. Some preliminary trial proceedings started. They were charged in groups, mostly with genocide. A further 2,952 former officials were charged in absentia, and the prosecution said it would seek the extradition of those who had fled abroad.

There were new allegations of torture, "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions during the year. Torture was widely reported against suspected olf and onlf members, including Wako Tola (for whose death in police custody there was no inquest) and Worku Mulata (see above). The students arrested in March, who included a blind law student, Ishetu Aleme, endured harsh physical exercises and severe punishments which amounted to torture. Beyene Belissa (see above), an amputee, was deprived of his walking stick for several days while detained.

Reports continued to be received of "disappearances" of government opponents, allegedly arrested by the security service and taken to secret detention centres. Some later reappeared in official prisons or police stations. However, the fate of many who had "disappeared" in previous years – including Mustafa Idris, Yoseph Ayele Bati, Deeg Yusuf Kariye and Tsegay Gebre-Medhin (see Amnesty International Report 1997) – remained unknown.

Extrajudicial executions by the security forces were widely reported from areas of armed conflict, particularly in the Oromia and Somali regions. In Addis Ababa on 8 May, Assefa Maru, an official of eta and a board member of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, was shot dead by police. Police claimed he belonged to a clandestine armed opposition group and was escaping arrest, but eye-witnesses reported that he was shot dead without any attempt to arrest him. Three alleged olf members, including Terefe Qumbi, a senior court official, were said by the police to have been killed in a shoot-out in Addis Ababa on 8 October, but they appeared to have been extrajudicially executed after arrest.

Several death sentences were imposed by courts but no executions were reported. In April the Supreme Court upheld death sentences imposed on three Egyptian nationals convicted of attempting to assassinate the Egyptian President and of killing two police officers in 1995 (see Amnesty International Report 1997).

Five exiles from Djibouti were arrested in Addis Ababa in September and nine others later in the year. They were immediately handed over to Djibouti, where they were detained and charged with political offences (see Djibouti entry)

Amnesty International appealed to the Ethiopian authorities to release prisoners of conscience, end arbitrary detention, and ensure that trials of political prisoners were not unfair or unduly protracted. It called for all allegations of human rights violations, such as torture, "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions, to be investigated impartially and thoroughly and for those responsible to be brought to justice. It urged the government to consider abolition of the death penalty. The authorities denied that violations had occurred or made no response. Amnesty International's researcher, excluded from visiting Ethiopia since 1995, continued to be denied access to the country, but two other Amnesty International representatives were able to visit Ethiopia in July.

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.