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On January 18, 2010, more than 22 Oromo high school students (ages 17-22) are detained from local Tikur Inchini High school, West Showa zone, Oromia by the current Tigray People’s Libration Front (TPLF) regime of Ethiopia. These students are being severely beaten and tortured in the detention center located in Ambo town under the now accustomed pretext of supporting the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF).

 

The arrest of these Oromo students occurred when the TPLF regime’s cadres and security agent called the students for a meeting on Monday January 18, 2010 and asked them to elect the Oromo Peoples Democratic Organization (OPDO), a pseudo TPLF agent’s candidate on the up-coming May 2010 so called general “election”. The students then expressed their feeling by telling to the cadres that “electing you (OPDO candidates) will be the same as licking the blood of our brothers and sisters whom you have murdered in cold-blood over the past several years” for being an Oromo and for demanding their fundamental human rights. The security forces in attendant got furious and told the students that “there are people among you who are supporting the objective of OLF ..” and began beating them and at the end more than 22 students who have been speaking out against the regimes policy toward the Oromo people were taken to local police station without a court order. The students remain in jail without any due process. We believe these students are being tortured and several of the detained students are minors who need an immediate access to their families.

 

The names of the 22 students currently in policy custody are:

1.      Dereje Geleta

2.      Jira Ajjama

3.      Lamma Ititu

4.      Amensiisa Tsegaye

5.      Tesfaye Tolera

6.      Ajama liki

7.      Hailu Tolessa

8.      Gamachu Bekele

9.      Mokonnen Tadesse

10. Gashew Alamu

11. Janana WAQUMA

12. Diriba Adugna

13. Hirpha Feyissa

14. Silashi Kebede

15. Assefa Berhanu

16. Tefaye Guddissa

17. Borana Abara

18. Berhanu Abdissa

19. Irana Toleera

20. Shino Alemayehu

21. Negassa Fulassa

22. Getechew Dagabasaa
 

Additional reports reaching us also indicates that the Ethiopian regime continue to arrest several innocent Oromos from Western Shoa, Eastern Wollega, Western Wollega, and others under the same pretext of supporting the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). The details of these arrests are on the process of being compiled under difficult conditions (because the regime harasses and jails anyone reporting on its human rights violations). Further details will be coming soon on these arrests.

 

Oromia Human Rights and Justice Council (OHRJC) calls on Ethiopian authorities to grant these student prisoners access to lawyers and their families in accordance with the Standard for the Treatment of Prisoners. We also call upon the Ethiopian government to refrain from inhuman and degrading punishment of prisoners in all forms.

 

 

 

 

His Excellency Mr Fisseha Adugna,

Embassy of the federal republic of Ethiopia,

17 Princes Gate, London SW7 1PZ.

Fax: 020 7584 7054