The international human rights organization Amnesty International on Tuesday called for the UN Human Rights Council to urgently revisit its approach to Ethiopia and take measures to investigate the human rights violations committed in the Amhara, Oromia, and Tigray armed conflicts.
“The international community must act decisively. Ethiopia’s development partners should abandon their ‘policy of no policy’ stance following the expiration of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia’s mandate and prioritize human rights in their engagement with the government,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa.
Amnesty International said this in its press releases that strongly condemned and called “vague and unsubstantiated allegations” of the Ethiopian government’s decision to suspend the Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE), Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD), and Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR).
Amnesty blamed the Ethiopian government for using unsubstantiated allegations of “lack of political neutrality and engaging against the national interest” to suppress the human rights organizations.
“Amid reports of escalating conflict, mass arbitrary detentions, and forced evictions, the role of civil society and media is more critical in Ethiopia than ever,” Chagutah stressed.
“The suspension of these three prominent human rights organizations highlights a growing crackdown on civic space, compounded by the lack of accountability for recent targeting of human rights defenders,” he adds.
