{"id":218951,"date":"2018-01-04T22:15:49","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T03:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=218951"},"modified":"2019-02-05T02:45:26","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T07:45:26","slug":"ethiopias-government-announces-release-of-political-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/218951","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia's government announces release of political prisoners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Protest(DW) – It is a glimmer of hope after two years of violence: The Ethiopian head of government apparently tried in the bloody conflict with the ethnic groups of the Oromo and Amharen the – peaceful – liberation.
\nThe Ethiopian government has surprisingly announced the release of political prisoners.\u00a0Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (photo) said, according to a report by the media association Fana Broadcasting Corporate, that the decision had been made with a view to “improving national cohesion”.\u00a0Imprisoned “politicians” would be punished, charges dropped.\u00a0Details did not mention Desalegn, however.\u00a0Thus, the number of prisoners affected by the amnesty remained as unclear as the time of release.
\nAI: Maybe the end of an era of bloody repression<\/strong>
\nThe surprising announcement by Desalegn is the first step the Ethiopian government has taken towards its critics since the beginning of civil unrest more than two years ago.\u00a0So far she has not even acknowledged that there are political prisoners in Ethiopia.\u00a0Since 2015, more than 11,000 people have been\u00a0temporarily detained\u00a0in\u00a0\u00a0 protests in the Oromia region<\/a>\u00a0against the central government, killing several hundred.\u00a0Around 2,000 people will continue to be detained.\u00a0These figures were cited by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch.\u00a0The state of emergency was lifted in August 2017 after ten months.
\nAmnesty International (AI) described the announcement by Desalegn as a significant step.\u00a0“Today’s announcement could mark the end of an era of bloody repression in Ethiopia,” said Ethiopia Specialist of the human rights organization, Fisseha Tekle.\u00a0He also called for clarifying abuses and bringing those responsible to justice.
\nMaekelawi torture prison is to become a museum<\/strong>
\nDesalegn also announced the closure of Maekelawi Prison, a notorious torture prison, and its conversion into a museum.\u00a0The institution has been in operation since the days of the Derg military junta, which came to power in the country following the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 and lasted until 1987.\u00a0In a report released in 2013 by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, the police said the police were “abusing all sorts of abuses, including torture.”\u00a0The government contradicted the presentation.
\nDesalegns appearance before journalists was preceded by multi-day consultations of the ruling party EPRDF.\u00a0Apparently, leaders of the Oromo and Amhara communities have pushed for the opening of the traditionally authoritarian policies that have been persecuting the EPRDF for more than 20 years.\u00a0Members of both ethnic groups had led the protest against the government, many of whom had subsequently been ill-treated or arrested.\u00a0In the country with around 100 million inhabitants, the opposition has not been represented in parliament since 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(DW) – It is a glimmer of hope after two years of violence: The Ethiopian head of government apparently tried in the bloody conflict with the ethnic groups of the Oromo and Amharen the – peaceful – liberation. The Ethiopian government has surprisingly announced the release of political prisoners.\u00a0Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (photo) said, according […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-UXt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264034,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218951\/revisions\/264034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}