Ambassador Michèle Taylor, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council, has today expressed her grave concern over the human rights violations in Ethiopia’s Amhara and Oromia regions.
Speaking at the 47th United Nations Human Rights Council’s Session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the human rights record of Ethiopia, which was held this morning in Geneva, Switzerland, Taylor called for accountability for atrocities including the “war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing committed during the northern conflict” in Ethiopia.
“We are gravely concerned about reports of human rights violations in Amhara, Oromia, and elsewhere by restricting fundamental rights throughout the country,” she stressed.
The Ethiopian delegation, led by Belayihun Yirga Kifle, State Minister, Ministry of Justice, presented the country’s human rights records to the council.
Belayihun said the government has taken measures to “uphold the rule of law” to resolve the ongoing conflicts in the Amhara and Oromia regions through dialogue and reconciliation with the armed groups.
According to Belayihun, the federal government conducted “two rounds of negotiations” with the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) in Tanzania when the Amhara Regional State Peace Council tried to resolve the conflict in the Amhara region by facilitating “discussions with various factions.”
A representative of Lithuania to the UN Human Rights Council has expressed his concern over grave human rights violations committed by both state and non-state actors including “torture, arbitrary arrest, killing, and gender-based violence as well as the suppression of journalists and civil societies” in Ethiopia.
Other representatives in the council have forwarded recommendations to the Ethiopian delegation to pay attention to the international conventions on enforced disappearance, executions, extrajudical killings, torture, gender-based violence, recruitment and use of childhood soldiers, freedom of speech and expression including freedom of assembly, impunity, victim-based judicial process, ensuring accountability, and allowing an independent investigations of the human rights violations in the country.
The UNHRC UPR Working Group is expected to adopt the recommendations on Friday, November 15, 2024.
