Ethiopia lessons in repression: violations of academic problems, HRW

three-meter room with about fifteen other detainees. One month later, he was transferred to the jail at the Ambo
police station, where he was confined in a small room with approximately sixty other detainees. Because of the
lack of space, they had to take turns lying down to sleep. He was brought before a local judge four or five times,
and each time the court granted the prosecution a continuance to continue investigations and he was not charged
with any crime. He was released on June 14, 2002 on 3,000 birr (U.S.$360) bail. After his release, local officials
prevented him from returning to work at the school, and he had no income. 61
Another intellectual arrested at Ambo was Dr. Ephrem Mamo, a veterinarian who had previously been a
professor at AAU and dean of Alemayehu Agricultural College. Dr. Ephrem, who was released in early July, told
acquaintances he had not been ill-treated. 62 A university graduate working for the district agriculture office in
Bako was also detained at the Ambo palace for approximately two months. 63
Human Rights Watch interviewed two other Ambo men who said that they saw several detainees beaten
and tortured while they were detained at the Ambo palace. One said prison guards treated student detainees the
worst. The other recounted how police burned a student with a hot iron all over his body and clubbed another
local man with a metal bar that peeled off skin on his buttocks and arms. The two, who were detained at the
palace from April 8 until June 13 and 19, respectively, said they had not been physically ill-treated. However,
one said that police had threatened him and, while interrogating him, had written down the names of his
children. 64
Even some primary school students, some as young as nine, were detained. A professor at Addis Ababa
University lamented that his eleven-year-old nephew, whose father had died of natural causes the year before, had
been arrested in early April in Dembi Dolo and detained for nearly three months. “I talked to him on the phone.
He doesn’t understand. . . . The boy’s mother almost died of grief; first she lost her husband and now her first
born and only son was taken away. There are hundreds of cases like that.” 65 A European diplomat who visited
the prison in Dembi Dolo met an eleven-year-old detainee who had been in prison for a week and suspended from
school for a year for writing “I support the OLF” on the blackboard at school. 66 A resident of Gella told a
journalist that twenty-seven children were arrested there and forced to walk thirty kilometers to the prison in
Dembi Dolo, where they were detained for two months for singing a song insulting members of the TPLF. 67
Eleven children aged nine to thirteen were also reportedly suspended from school in Dembi Dolo for wearing
black clothing to school to indicate that they were in mourning for the students who were killed in Shambu. 68
Human Rights Watch has continued to receive reports of arbitrary arrest by Oromia police even though
most of those arrested in the wake of the protests have since been freed. In Guder on July 5, 2002, at least eleven
civilians were arrested, including the director of Guder Senior Secondary School and five teachers. 69 Police in
Nazret reportedly detained four students, along with one of their fathers, on October 25 and 26, 2002, and
announced plans to arrest thirty-six more students. The students are members of the Gumii club of Nazret
(Adama) Senior Secondary School and a local junior high school. Sources in exile reported that their alleged
infraction was printing a textbook on Oromo cultural history. 70
61 Human Rights Watch interviews, Addis Ababa, July 27 and 31, 2002.
62 Human Rights Watch interview with a foreign researcher who met Dr. Ephrem, July 13, 2002.
63 Human Rights Watch interview, Addis Ababa, July 27, 2002.
64 Human Rights Watch interviews, Addis Ababa, July 31, 2002.
65 Human Rights Watch interview, Addis Ababa, July 17, 2002.
66 Human Rights Watch interview, Addis Ababa, July 25, 2002.
67 Human Rights Watch interview, Addis Ababa, July 27, 2002.
68 Human Rights Watch interview, Addis Ababa, July 27, 2002.
69 Human Rights Watch interview, New York, July 8, 2002.
70 Union of Oromo Students in Europe, Swiss Branch, “Urgent Action: Fear of disappearance, arbitrary arrest,” November 2,
2002.
Human Rights Watch
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January 2003, Vol. 15,No. 2 (A)