JUNE 22/1999
REPRESSION AGAINST THE EPRP INTENSIFIES
60 PEOPLE DETAINED IN SOUTHERN REGION
SOCEPP
has learnt that more than 60 people (civil servants, housewives, traders. lawyers, youths, and peasants) have been rounded up by the EPRDF in the Southern region and jailed in Awassa and other places as of early June. Most of the jailed are former members of the opposition Ethiopian People' s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and are being, strangely, accused of "Red Terror Crimes" when they were actually victims and for years behind bars during the Mengistu regime.In a public meeting called in Awassa town by the EPRDF to moblize the people to contribute more to the war effort in Eritrea, the assembled called for an explanation of the above metioned arrests and that of more than 100 people last year whose cases have never been brought before any court of law. The EPRDF refused to respond and the meeting was disbanded by the people who walked out.
The repression against former or allegedly actual members of the EPRP has been intensified lately since the government is trying to silence its bitterest critic and to alienate the said organization as the "enemy of the people just like the OLF and the ONLF". In Addis Abeba's Kebelles, the EPRDF cadres have intensified the campaign against the EPRP claiming that this organization is working with Eritrea against the EPRDF. The EPRP continues to criticize both governments for the "disastrous war" and has called for the respect of human rights and democratization in Ethiopia as a necessary precondition for peace in the region.
It is to be noted that the EPRDF has yet to account on the whereabouts of several EPRP leaders (Tsegaye Gebre Medhin, Yishak Debretsion, Belete Amha, Sitotaw Hussein, Aberash Berta, etc..) who have "disappeared" in custody. Recently, three EPRP members died in the Bahr Dar prison because they were denied medical treatment.
Socepp calls on the EPRDF government o stop the repression against the EPRP and to immdiately release those detained in Awassa and other towns.
socepp
