“The human rights situation in Ethiopia has been going from bad to worse since the May 2005 General Election. The June 8th crackdown against peaceful protestors has claimed dozens of lives, including those who were not involved in the protest, and led to mass arrest of thousands of innocent people from Addis Ababa alone. This repressive measure by the government has only exacerbated the political tension in the country.

The round table talks between the opposition and the ruling party, which was mediated by the diplomatic community in Addis Ababa, were discontinued without any result. The call of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) for peaceful protest through the hooting of car horns and stay-aways was denounced as unlawful by the government, which regarded such protest as tantamount to an insurrection to overthrow the constitutional order. And the closure of peaceful avenues for expressing political dissent has precipitated the explosion of pent up frustration, with the confrontation between stone throwing youths and well armed security forces easily degenerating into an unprecedented street violence on November 1st and 2nd particularly in Addis Ababa. The security forces indiscriminately fired live ammunition at unarmed civilians to stop the protest. The outcome has been yet more loss of lives and unnecessary destruction of both private and public property. On November 15, 2005, the Federal Police Commissioner reported to Parliament that 35 civilians and seven policemen had lost their lives in and outside Addis Ababa, 156 civilians and 338 policemen had been injured, over 153 vehicles, most of them public buses, had been damaged, and private property burned down during the protest. So far most of the leaders of the CUDP whom the Prime Minister has accused of committing treason, have been put behind bars, awaiting prosecution. Following the wave of mass arrest of people in Addis Ababa, the police reported that it had released over 8,000 people who it said had no link with the street protest, but it has not disclosed how many were arrested and how many are still languishing in official and unofficial prisons as well as military camps. Nor is the true scale of the loss of lives and the destruction of property known since the crack down has also shut down most of the independent presses and thrown into jail several journalists and publishers.”