Ethiopia’s Federal Attorney General has dismissed the Amnesty International report issued in May 2020 under the title “Beyond Law Enforcement: Human Rights Violations by Ethiopian Security Forces in Amhara and Oromia” as fundamentally flawed.
A new report by the rights group Amnesty International accused Ethiopia’s security forces of extrajudicial killings and mass detentions.
The report issued in May this year said that security forces killed at least 25 people in 2019 in the East Guji and West Guji zones of the restive Oromia region amid suspicions of supporting a rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Army, and a once-exiled opposition group. And that at least 10,000 people under suspicion were detained between January and September, with most “subjected to brutal beatings”.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the office of the Attorney General said it had formed a committee drawn from the attorney bureaus of Amhara and Oromia regions, the police, universities and civil society organizations (CSOs) to investigate the credibility of the alleged human rights violations.
It added that the efforts made to hold consultations with the senior leadership of Amnesty International about the report were not successful due to the inadequate response of Amnesty International.
According to the statement, the investigation made by the committee has revealed that the report which lumped together all measures taken by the government to ensure rule of law as violation of human rights is partial and biased.
It noted that the report did not take into consideration the objective reality of the country.
MG/GIK/APA