'World must help'
2005-06-15 13:19
Nairobi - Ethiopia's crackdown on opposition members and students has spread outside the capital, while thousands of detainees are at increasing risk for abuse, a leading human rights group said Wednesday.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the mass arrests that began in Addis Ababa after protests against alleged fraud in May 15 polls led to deadly clashes last week were now occurring in at least nine cities.
"While international attention has focused on events in Addis Ababa, opposition members and students in other cities are increasingly at risk of arbitrary arrest and torture," the group said in a statement.
"Human Rights Watch has obtained reports of mass arrests in at least nine cities outside of Addis Ababa," it said, listing them as Gondar, Bure, Bahir Dar, Debre Markos, Dessie, Awassa, Wondo Genet, Kombolcha and Jinka.
The group, which has issued two highly critical reports on Ethiopia's human rights record this year, said it was deeply concerned about the welfare of detainees, given what it called the country's history of prisoner mistreatment.
"Given the Ethiopian security forces' long record of detainee abuse, there is every reason to worry that those arrested are being mistreated," said HRW deputy director for Africa Georgette Gagnon.
"This is especially true for those who have been detained in towns far from the media spotlight that has focused on Addis Ababa in recent days," she said.
Opposition groups and a local rights watchdog say well over 3 000 people have been rounded up by the authorities, the majority of whom were arrested after clashes in Addis Ababa in which at least 36 people were killed.
In addition, at least two opposition activists, including a politician who had been elected to parliament in the May vote, have been killed by police outside the capital, according to their party.
The thousands of detainees are reported to include scores of opposition party employees and at least three investigators with the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) who were probing alleged abuse of those in custody.
Ethiopian authorities have not said how many people are being held since they announced the arrest of 520 students on June 6, many of whom have now been released, but have defended their actions as necessary to preserve the peace.
EHRCO has said most of the arrests were unlawful and that detainees were being held incommunicado and without charge in violation of their constitutional rights, complaints echoed by Human Rights Watch.
HRW said some students released from the Sendafala detention facility north of Addis Ababa reported they were forced to perform a series of exhausting drills and exercises as a form of punishment while in custody.
"The international community should call on the Ethiopian government to immediately open up these detention facilities to international scrutiny," it said.