immunity for torturers, possibly
and a civil society organisation suspended
Hi there,
I’ve been working with the wonderful team at The Fuller Project, where I stepped into a new role as their newsletter producer for the coming few months.
The Fuller Project is a non-profit global newsroom that focuses on reporting on women across the globe. If you’re interested in keeping up with investigations and analysis on issues impacting women across the world, check out their work and sign up for the newsletter here.
The promised highlights from the report on attacks on government officials will have to wait another week, as I didn’t have the time to go over it yet, but if you want to take a look before then, reply to this email and let me know – I’ll send it your way.
My name is Maya Misikir, and I’m a freelance reporter based in Addis Abeba. I write Sifter, this newsletter where I send out the week’s top 5 human rights stories in Ethiopia.
Now, to the news.
Law: immunity for torturers, possibly
Exactly a year ago, parliamentarians were presented with a series of draft laws that ‘could limit rights on the freedom to movement and encroach on the mandate of courts’. One of them, the asset recovery law, was passed into law last week.
The law, which deals with financial crimes, allows ‘authorities broad powers, during covert investigations of alleged crimes or interrogation of suspects to use all available methods, excluding killing,’ according to a story on The Reporter.
This means that ‘interrogators would be shielded from criminal liability for any actions taken during interrogations, as long as they did not result in death’.
Here’s an excerpt:
Critics argue that this provision could be used as a tool to suppress dissent and silence civil society. Many fear the law will be weaponized against political opponents, rights groups, journalists, businesspeople, and other segments of society.
The asset recovery law has many other issues. The first is its retrospective nature that allows authorities to go as far back as 10 years to investigate cases.
It also shifts the burden of proof from prosecutors to ‘individuals and institutions [who] must provide evidence of the legitimacy of their assets, and ‘grants investigators the authority to bypass privacy protections, such as accessing bank accounts and emails without court orders’, according to another report on Addis Fortune.
The full story on The Reporter, here, on Addis Fortune, here, and on BBC Amharic, here.
Labor rights: the repercussions continue
I’ve been writing updates on the nationwide strike by healthcare workers that took off last month. Healthcare workers, who have been demanding better working conditions and pay, among a list of ‘12 concrete demands’, have faced harassment and detention since the strike started.
Last week, the civil society regulatory body suspended the Ethiopian Health Professionals Association (EHPA) on the grounds that the Association had not held its general assembly and failed to submit its financial reports, according to a story on Addis Standard.
The Association’s president, Yonatan Dagnaw, whose detention during the strike was condemned by rights groups, including Amnesty, says this decision is linked to the ongoing strike.
Here’s an excerpt of what he said:
Yonatan stated, “We operated according to the guidelines and the laws of the country. We did nothing beyond that,” adding that EHPA believes “the suspension is primarily connected to the health professionals’ movement.”
EHPA has been a vocal supporter of the movement since the early pre-strike mobilizations, becoming the first registered association to openly endorse the demands raised by health professionals.
On Saturday, the Prime Minister posted on X that he held a meeting with ‘various stakeholders focused on health sector professionals’. Beyond mentioning that the meeting looked into ‘gaps and challenges, as well as opportunities and progress within the sector,’ no concrete outcome has yet been reported.
The full story on Addis Standard, here.
Migration: legal protection for workers
There was a meeting in Nairobi last week on a new labor migration law that offers legal protection to migrant workers across the continent.
The consultations on this Model Law on Labour Migration in Africa, a framework to ‘manage migration in a way that protects the rights and dignity of migrants’, were led by the African Union.
What is the Model Law on Labour Migration in Africa, and why does the continent need this?
It’s a law that can offer better legal protection for migrants across the continent, covering issues like recruitment. African countries can then use this model law to make sure their national laws are ‘in line with international labour standards’.
As of 2019, there were 14.5 million migrant workers in Africa, and over 80 percent of them were in East Africa, according to data from the Migration Data Portal.
Who was present at this continental discussion?
Parliamentarians from across the continent, representatives of the UN’s migration body, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the African Union (AU), as well as civil society actors.
So, what happened during this meeting?
Representatives went over this draft law and gave feedback and comments, to give it ‘clarity, practicality, and applicability’ for different contexts across the continent.
What stands in the way of this legislation coming into full force?
While African countries backed the legal framework at this latest meeting, its implementation, if adopted by the AU, will require extensive advocacy at the national parliaments of member states. This will face issues like ‘limited political will, implementation challenges, and resource constraints’.
The full statement by the ILO, here, and the communiqué by the AU, here.
Elections: offices raided, members detained
Last week’s update on election-related news included a report that one opposition political party, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), had managed to get its headquarters back after five years.
In Ethiopia’s Somali Region, another opposition political party, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), says that two senior party members have been detained ‘incommunicado’ for three weeks, according to a report on Addis Standard.
Here’s an excerpt:
ONLF accused local and regional officials of ordering and supervising the raid and detentions, and alleged that these actions were carried out “on direct orders” from Somali Regional State President Mustafa Muhumed Omar.
The party is calling for rights bodies to monitor the well-being of the detainees, who are being held at an undisclosed detention center, according to the story.
The full report, on Addis Standard, here.
Funding: an investigation into USAID cuts
When funding cuts to USAID were first made earlier in February, I wrote an update on how this would affect Ethiopia. As of 2023, USAID was the largest bilateral donor of humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia, and funded 357 projects across 22 sectors in the country.
What is left of the programs under USAID today? Here’s an excerpt from a new investigation by The New York Times:
The remaining awards [under USAID] are designed to address acute disease, hunger and other emergencies, and not areas like education, governance or jobs that are supposed to help countries avoid crises in the first place.
Was the justification for the cuts based on ‘reducing fraud, inefficiency or cost’ as was claimed?
The story adds that despite these claims, ‘officials canceled contracts designed to prevent abuse’ and that the terminated awards ‘were worth less than half of the agency’s obligations’.
Here’s another excerpt on that:
The median kept award was worth $6 million, and 40 percent of these awards were worth $10 million or more. Some were worth billions… The median cut award, by contrast, was worth just over $1 million. About a third of the cut awards were worth $100,000 or less.
The full story, ‘based on 70 interviews and dozens of internal documents and correspondence’, on The New York Times, here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, feel free to share this with anyone you think can benefit from keeping up with what’s going on in Ethiopia.
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“As of 2023, USAID was the largest bilateral donor of humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia, and funded 357 projects across 22 sectors in the country.” 😭🙈
“This means that ‘interrogators would be shielded from criminal liability for any actions taken during interrogations, as long as they did not result in death’.” 😱😱😱😬😬😬