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Ethiopia: After Scotland, should the Region of Shewa Allowed to Hold Referendum? | Somalilandpress.com | Somaliland News

Human Rights Watch welcomes the adoption of the outcome of the UPR on Ethiopia, which reflected many important recommendations to address human rights concerns in the country. We welcome Ethiopia’s stated commitment to rights-based development and the government’s important efforts to improve respect for the rights of women, children, persons with disabilities, and migrant workers, as well as its longstanding support for up to 500,000 refugees. However, the Human Rights Council’s review of Ethiopia comes at a time of increasing concern about the rights situation in the country. Ethiopia’s government refuses to acknowledge, much less investigate and respond to, many credible allegations of serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment by the state security forces. Fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Ethiopian constitution and international human rights law, particularly freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, have c

This chart, sent to us by well placed source, shows ethnic composition of employees of Ethiopia’s  federal government. The data shows huge disparity when compared to ethnic composition of the country, even if we use the disputed 2007 census.   Amharas make up 51% percent of the employees, which is twice the size of their proportion of the country’s  population. Oromos make up 12.7% which is one-fourth of their population size. Somalis, the third largest ethnic group in the country,  make up about 6.2% of the total population but  they only constitute just 0.07% of the federal government’s workforce. There is a group categorized as ‘unidentified/ undisclosed’ constituting  23.7% of the federal workforce. While its not clear what criteria is being used to categorize them as such, we can assume these are people who refuse to identify their ethnic background. The likely candidate for this are Amharas who oppose ‘ethnic’ politics and Tigreans whose identity are hidden by the ruling part

Mahlet Fasil It is not often that one finds an artist audacious enough to immerse his artwork in a realistic portrayal of landscape and cityscape in the current Ethiopian art scene. Fitsum Tefera is all too aware of the prestige usually associated with a variety of abstractism.     In fact he is not reserved from expressing his reverence of the great Ethiopian artists who went far on that road, some of whom his teachers. “When you spend a long time leading a life of an artist, you begin to yearn for alternatives in conveying your message,” says the 28 year old who does not find it hard to humbly admit he is a relative novice. “With maturity and much contemplation, there is a possibility that you might be prone to recede from depicting reality as it is.”   But not him. At least not yet. He is a nature aficionado whose love affair with landscape painting is tied with his childhood in Bale, an area in Southeastern Ethiopia famous for its gorgeous mountainous features. Born in Ha

A group of United Nations human rights experts* today urged the Government of Ethiopia to stop misusing anti-terrorism legislation to curb freedoms of expression and association in the country, amid reports that people continue to be detained arbitrarily. The experts' call comes on the eve of the consideration by Ethiopia of a series of recommendations made earlier this year by members of the Human Rights Council in a process known as the Universal Periodic Review which applies equally to all 193 UN Members States. These recommendations are aimed at improving the protection and promotion of human rights in the country, including in the context of counter-terrorism measures. "Two years after we first raised the alarm, we are still receiving numerous reports on how the anti-terrorism law is being used to target journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders and opposition politicians in Ethiopia," the experts said. "Torture and inhuman treatment in detention are g