(New York, May 10, 2001) Ethiopian security forces have used excessive
force in dealing with student protests and are using the protests as an
excuse for cracking down on all government critics, Human Rights Watch
charged today. Attacks by security forces on Addis Ababa University, in
Ethiopia's capital, have led to forty-one deaths, hundreds of injuries,
and the detention of over two thousand students and scores of government
critics since April 17.

"The government's heavy-handed tactics have enflamed what began as a
peaceful local student protest into a violent national crisis," said
Saman Zia-Zarifi, Human Rights Watch's Academic Freedom Director. "The
attacks on academic freedom have now degenerated into a wholesale
assault on civil society in Ethiopia."

On the morning of May 8, armed security forces arrested Prof. Mesfin
Woldemariam and Berhanu Nega, both prominent academics and human rights
activists. Prof. Mesfin, who was fired from his teaching position in
1991, was a founder of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, a monitoring
organization. His detention follows that of several dozen members of
civil and political groups critical of the Ethiopian government.
Authorities claim these opposition figures instigated the recent student
protests.

However, eyewitness testimony and information from local sources
indicate that Ethiopian authorities responded with brutal violence to
students demanding greater academic freedom, and are now using the
ensuing crisis to justify a general crackdown on figures critical of the
government.

Security forces attacked students at Addis Ababa University on April 11,
injuring more than fifty students. A week later, at least forty people
were killed during raids at the university by heavily armed members of
the Special Forces branch of the security forces. Eyewitnesses claim
that the police raid on students escalated into widespread riots around
Addis Ababa as protesters disaffected with government policies joined
the clashes in support of the students.

According to eyewitnesses, security forces fired live ammunition at
protesters. Police reports stated that thirty-one people were killed in
the raids, while hospital sources put the number of dead as at least
forty-one. Some fifty-five people were hospitalized as a result of
injuries sustained during the clashes. Witnesses state that the riot
police beat civilians with batons though they offered no resistance, and
then turned on bystanders, including women and children. Students were
dragged out of local churches and mosques, where they had sought refuge,
and taken into detention.

More than two thousand students were detained during these raids. Most
were released a few days later, but several who were suspected of being
members of the university student council are still held incommunicado.
The security forces have also rounded up nearly 150 political activists
and journalists critical of the government, many of whom are being held
without any information as to their whereabouts.

According to the testimony of newly released student detainees, they
were taken to the Sendafa police training college outside Addis Ababa,
where they received only bread and water once a day. Students were
disciplined by being forced to run barefoot on stony ground, and were
denied medical care or access to their families and lawyers. As a
condition of release and readmission to the university, students said
they were forced to sign a form admitting that they had participated in
an illegal action and were responsible for the violence.

Police again raided the Addis Ababa University campus on April 30,
arresting several students suspected of playing leadership roles in the
protests. Despite the police action, and contrary to the government's
public statements, Addis Ababa University remains under a student
boycott in support of the detained students. The unrest has spread to at
least ten other universities and scores of high schools around the
country, including Alemaya University of Agriculture and Bahir-Dar
Polytechnic Institute.

Academics interviewed by telephone by Human Rights Watch claim that
security forces are blocking students at Addis Ababa from traveling to
their home towns outside of the capital in order to prevent contact
between protesters and sympathetic student groups around the country.

Background

At the root of the student protests are demands for greater academic
freedom. Student groups at Addis Ababa University were engaged in
ongoing negotiations with Minister of Education Genet Zewde over
requests for decreased government controls over the campus. The
students' main demands were permission to republish a banned student
magazine, dismissal of two university administrators closely affiliated
with the government, and removal of security troops stationed inside the
campus.

While the government initially conceded the first two demands, it did
not commit to a schedule for removing security forces from the
universities. When students continued to press their demands, the
minister of education issued an ultimatum threatening students who did
not return to classes with police force. The security forces' efforts to
enforce the ultimatum, coming on the heels of continuing police use of
violence to quash student protests, set off the clashes on April 17 and
18 at Addis Ababa University and the chain of events leading to the
current crisis.

The Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom program works with a committee
prominent academic leaders and scholars, including the current and past
presidents of Harvard University, Columbia University and more
than a dozen other universities in the United States, as well as
internationally prominent academics. Human Rights Watch urged the
Ethiopian government to promptly investigate the conduct of security
forces in causing the deaths during raids at Addis Ababa University; to
release all students, government critics and human rights monitors still
in detention, or promptly allow them the opportunity to defend
themselves against formal charges in a proper court of law; and to honor
academic freedom by allowing free expression at the universities.

For more information on academic freedom in Ethiopia, please see:

Academic Leaders Urge Ethiopia To Release Detained Eritrean Exchange
Students (HRW Press Release, July 29, 1998) at
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/press98/july/ethi0729.htm

Human Rights Developments, Ethiopia (HRW World Report 2001) at
http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/africa/ethiopia.html