The UN Committee Against Torture alarmed by severe human rights...

The UN Committee Against Torture alarmed by
severe human rights violations in Ethiopia

01 December, 2010 | Human Rights House
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The human rights situation in Ethiopia is in decline. Despite the
State party’s assurances that a wide range of criminal code
provisions and other laws ensure that the country’s international
and domestic obligations under the Convention Against Torture
are met, in practice these legal provisions have no effect.

In its state report to the recent CAT review, Ethiopia implies that the
relevant legislation on torture is thorough and sufficient. However, the
implementation of this legislation is far from satisfactory. The number
of incidents of torture that have been investigated or prosecuted is
negligible. Torture occurs both in well-known and covert detention. It is
regularly used in federal prisons and police stations. The prisons are
overcrowded and the serving conditions are degrading for the detainees.
The state party does not deny the existence of torture in the country,
but non-state reports have provided the committee with information
about significantly more cases of torture than admitted by Ethiopia. In
sum, the way the Ethiopian government deals with these accusations is
simply not credible.

In its concluding remarks, the Committee against Torture points out 27
topics as subjects of concern and makes recommendations to the state
party in the following areas: definition of torture, its widespread use,
impunity for the authorities, anti-terrorism measures as false pretence
for torture, abductions, human trafficking and other areas of the failures
of implementing the existing laws. Read the full CAT report on Ethiopia
here.

Fundamental freedoms

in Ethiopia are severely

limited. The

government

generally

refuses to permit

demonstrations or

protests of a larger

scale.

Such forms of

opposition are, if they

occur, forcefully

dispersed and

participants do get arrested in large numbers and are often brutally
treated in detention. CAT's concluding report also addresses the
increase in restrictions on NGOs working in the field of human rights
and the administration of justice.

Paragraph 34 of the report reads: The Committee expresses serious
concern about reliable information on the negative impact of
Proclamation No. 621/2009 for the Registration of Charities and
Societies, which bars foreign NGOs and those which receive more than
10 percent of their funds from foreign sources from working on human
rights and the administration of justice (article 14), on the capacity of
local human rights NGOs to facilitate prison visits and to provide legal
aid and other assistance or rehabilitation to victims of torture and ill-
treatment. The Committee notes with concern that local human rights
NGOs previously active in those areas, including the Ethiopian Human
Rights Council, the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association, the
Ethiopian Bar Association and the Rehabilitation Centre for Victims of
Torture in Ethiopia, are no longer fully operational (arts. 2, 11, 13 and
16). The Committee calls on the State party to acknowledge the crucial
role of NGOs in preventing, documenting and assisting victims of
torture and ill-treatment, consider lifting the funding restrictions on local
human rights NGOs, unblock any frozen assets of those NGOs, and
ensure their freedom from harassment and intimidation, with a view to
enabling them to play a meaningful role in the implementation of the
Convention in the State party, thereby assisting the State party in
fulfilling its obligations under the Convention.

CAT’s concluding remarks also draw particular attention to the use of
torture against human rights defenders, people who pass criticism on
the government or are engaged in peaceful protests. Such individuals are
often regarded as terrorists and the Ethiopian government uses the
pretext of them being a hazard to national security to silence the
opposition. In its concluding observations the Committee states: “no
exceptional circumstances whatsoever can be invoked as a justification
for torture”. The Committee further recommends that Ethiopia
strengthens its cooperation with the United Nations human rights
mechanisms and permits visits of the Special Rapporteur on torture and
other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

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