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Australia: Protests Prompt Ethiopia Reprisals
Posted November 7th, 2016 for Human Rights Watch
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Visa for Abusive Ethiopian Official Raises Concerns
(Sydney) – The Ethiopian government has arrested and detained dozens
of relatives of Ethiopians who participated in a Melbourne protest in
June, 2016, and is still holding many of them four months later, Human
Rights Watch said today.
On June 12, members of Australia’s Ethiopian community who are from
Somali Regional State protested the visit to Australia of an Ethiopian
regional government delegation that included Abdi Mohamoud Omar, known
as Abdi Iley, the president of Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State. They
were also protesting Australia’s support for the Ethiopian government.
The Ethiopian delegation did not appear, and after several hours the
event was cancelled. The protesters later learned that several dozen
of their relatives in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State had been
arrested and detained due to their involvement in the Melbourne
protest.
“Abdi Mohamoud Omar and his colleagues have added collective
punishment to their long list of abuses against the people of Somali
Regional State,” said Felix Horne, senior Africa researcher at Human
Rights Watch. “The Australian government should raise their concerns
with their Ethiopian counterparts at the highest levels.”
Relatives of Australia’s Ethiopian community, who protested against
the visit of an Ethiopian regional government delegation to Australia,
were arrested due to their involvement in the protest.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 members of the Ethiopian Somali
community in Australia between July and September 2016.They told Human
Rights Watch that at least 32 family members had been arrested in
Ethiopia. Some have since been released but most were still in
detention, the relatives said. The Ethiopian government should
immediately release the relatives of the Melbourne protesters, whose
detention amounts to unlawful collective punishment of family members,
Human Rights Watch said.
Ethiopian Somali protesters in Melboune expressed particular concern
over Abdi Mohamoud Omar’s visit. The Liyu police, a paramilitary unit
that reports directly to Abdi Mohamoud Omar, has been responsible for
numerous serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial
executions and torture. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and
Trade told Human Rights Watch that Abdi Mohamoud Omar’s visa
application did not raise any serious concerns. The Australian
government should ensure that foreign officials implicated in serious
human rights abuses do not receive visas, Human Rights Watch said.
Numerous Ethiopian Somali Australians said that pro-government
supporters living in Australia regularly harass community members
perceived as government opponents. Several protesters said that these
supporters called or personally confronted them in the days following
the arrests and pressed them to make a video pledging support for Abdi
Mohamoud Omar in order to secure the release of their relatives. At
least three members of Australia’s Ethiopian Somali community have
done this.
One man described pleas from his family members: “If you do not record
something, they will kill us.”
Threatening demands for video apologies have been a regular tactic of
the Somali Regional State government, Human Rights Watch said. People
from Somali Regional State who live in the United States, Canada, and
northern Europe have described similar networks and tactics by
pro-government supporters there. These videos are often posted to the
state-run broadcaster, ESTV, and to various pro-government websites.
“I don’t feel safe here,” one Australian said. “I thought I was safe.
When I came, [I thought] now I will be in a free country. To be in
Australia and be scared all the time, it doesn’t go together.”
One of the recently released detainees told his relative in Australia
that security personnel hit him every night. His interrogators told
him: “If you want to be released, you have to talk to [your relative]
about support[ing] the government. You have to talk to people and then
those people will take it to the embassy.” Arbitrary detention is
commonplace in Somali Regional State, and detainees describe frequent
torture and other ill-treatment in the region’s many detention sites.
Australia has a strong and growing economic relationship with
Ethiopia, and Australian companies are exploring opportunities in
Ethiopia in mining, energy, and agriculture. In July, an Australia
trade delegation from the state of Victoria visited Ethiopia.
Granting a visa to Abdi Mohamoud Omar, who previously visited
Australia in 2012, raises concerns about the Australian government’s
vetting process of people implicated in serious rights abuses. The
Department of Immigration and Border Protection is responsible for
assessing visa applications and can refuse visas to people suspected
of involvement in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
Given the significant evidence of war crimes and crimes against
humanity by Ethiopian forces in the country in 2007-2008 while Abdi
Mohamoud Omar was the Somali Regional State head of security, his visa
application should have raised serious questions, Human Rights Watch
said. However, Australian government officials told Human Rights Watch
that Abdi Mohamoud Omar’s visa raised no red flags.
In response to a letter from Human Rights Watch, the Australian
government wrote that “all non-citizens wishing to enter Australia are
assessed against relevant public interest criteria, including foreign
policy interest, national security and character requirements in
accordance with relevant legislation. This includes foreign officials
with potential character concerns or subject to allegations of human
rights abuses.”
“Ethiopia has severely cracked down down on protests at home, but has
gone a cruel step further by trying to silence Ethiopians protesting
abroad by punishing their family members,” Horne said. “These
relatives are being wrongfully held and should immediately be
released.”
For additional information, please see below.
The Melbourne Protest
The generally peaceful protest on June 12 was marred by several
scuffles, in which one man was injured, and the filming of protesters
by government supporters. Several protesters said that a United States
citizen connected to the Ethiopian ruling party, who was traveling
with Abdi Mohamoud Omar, threatened protesters, saying “You will see
what will happen to your relatives.” Another protester said that
pro-government Ethiopian Australians threatened him at the event,
saying, “You will see what happens.”
Several witnesses said that Ethiopian government supporters filmed
them using smartphones, which would facilitate identifying their
relatives in Somali Regional State. Within hours, protesters started
receiving calls from family members in Ethiopia saying that relatives
– some as old as 85 – had been arrested because of the Melbourne
protest.
One protester said he later heard from his family: “When they [Liyu
police] arrested my brothers, they told them, ‘Your brother is
protesting and that’s why we are arresting you.’”
Another protester said, “Around 8 p.m. I got a phone call from my
uncle back home. He said, ‘Two of your uncles were taken by the
security and we don’t know where they went. … [I]t’s about you as they
said your nephew did this or that to President Abdi Iley [Abdi
Mohamoud Omar], that’s why.’ They took them away to jail.”
The 70-year-old mother of a protester was among those arrested. Before
taking her to a military camp, the Liyu police asked her: “Are you the
mother of [name withheld]? Your son created trouble for the [regional]
president.” She was held for almost a month. She told her son that
uniformed captors had beaten her in custody.
Expand
Ethiopian government delegation, led by Abdi Mohamoud Omar (center),
meets with Australian government officials in Canberra, June 2016
Some other relatives of protesters, particularly the sick and the
elderly, have also been released, but on the condition that their
Australian relatives make a video apologizing to Abdi Mohamoud Omar
for their “anti-government” behavior. Other relatives arrested
following the protest remain in detention in various locations in
Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State.
Conflict, Abuses in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State
Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State, consisting largely of ethnic
Somalis, has been the site of a low-level insurgency by the Ogaden
National Liberation Front (ONLF) for more than 15 years. The ethnic
Somali armed movement, largely supported by members of the Ogaden
clan, has sought greater political autonomy for the region. Following
the insurgent group’s April 2007 attack on an oil installation in
Obole, which resulted in the deaths of 70 civilians and the capture of
several Chinese oil workers, the Ethiopian government carried out a
major counterinsurgency campaign incurring serious human rights
abuses.
In 2008, Human Rights Watch found that security forces were involved
in extrajudicial executions, torture, rape, and forced displacement of
civilians. Human Rights Watch believes the Ethiopian National Defense
Force and the insurgent group both committed war crimes between
mid-2007 and early 2008, and that the military could be responsible
for crimes against humanity. Abdi Mohamoud Omar was the head of
security of Somali Regional State during this period.
Since 2008, the paramilitary Liyu police, who report directly to Abdi
Mohamoud Omar, have frequently been accused of extrajudicial killings,
torture, rape, and violence against civilians accused of supporting or
being sympathetic to the ONLF, including in 2012 when the Liyu police
summarily executed 10 civilans. Abdi Mohamoud Omar has been the
president of Somali Regional State since 2010. Since 2008, a number of
victims of government abuses have told Human Rights Watch that Abdi
Mohamoud Omar was present during interrogations, ordering – and in
some cases directly involved in – their torture and that he was
present during executions of civilians.
One man detained in 2006 in a military camp told Human Rights Watch in
July 2016:
When Abdi Iley [Abdi Mohamoud Omar] got frustrated that they
[soldiers] did not do what he wanted then he did it himself. He would
tell them to hit harder or take matters into his own hands. Abdi Iley
[Abdi Mohamoud Omar] would say “You must confess.”
I was tortured. … We were handcuffed with our arms over our legs, with
the legs pulled up. They would put a rod under our legs and hang us up
so our head falls back and we hang upside down. I would be hung upside
down for periods of 15 minutes and they would hit my buttocks and
feet. It was very painful. They would keep us like this for 15 or 20
minutes.
Abdi Iley [Abdi Mohamoud Omar] was present for some of these
interrogations when we were hanging upside down. The stick was like a
rubber hose with an iron bar inside. Once, Abdi Iley[Abdi Mohamoud
Omar] thought the officer was not hitting hard enough [so] he took an
iron bar himself.
A number of people have also alleged that Abdi Mohamoud Omar
threatened them on social media. Limitations on access to Ethiopia in
general, and Somali Regional State specifically, have not made it
possible to corroborate these claims.
The Ethiopian government has never meaningfully investigated abuses by
the military or Liyu police in the Somali region. International human
rights groups are not permitted access to to the area.
The government has used various tactics to silence the diaspora. Human
Rights Watch has documented numerous examples in which family members
of Ethiopians who have been vocal abroad were targeted for arrest or
harassment. They have also been targeted for surveillance using
European-made malware. Diaspora-based websites are often blocked
inside Ethiopia, and the government regularly jams diaspora television
and radio stations.
Received on Mon Nov 07 2016 - 16:51:19 EST