Prison officials and security forces have arbitrarily detained and tortured prisoners for years in the notorious regional prison known as Jail Ogaden. Abiy Ahmed, should urgently order investigations into the horrific situation, and the government should ensure regional security forces and officials are held accountable.
Nairobi — Prison officials and security forces have arbitrarily detained and tortured prisoners for years in the notorious regional prison known as Jail Ogaden. Most prisoners are accused of some affiliation with the Ogaden National Liberation Front ONLF , a banned opposition group, but most never face charges or trials.
He did not speak of abuses in Jail Ogaden in particular or comment on what the government would do to ensure accountability for torture throughout Ethiopia or justice for the victims. Human Rights Watch interviewed almost people, including security force members, government officials, and 70 former detainees and documented abuses in Jail Ogaden between early In the Somali region of Ethiopia, it seems like everyone knows someone who was locked up in the dreaded Jail Ogaden, but no one wants to speak about the horrors there.
They [prison officials] did many things to me — they electrocuted my testicles, they tied wire around them, and they put a plastic bag with chili powder over my head. Detainees said they were stripped naked and beaten in front of the entire prison population and made to carry out humiliating acts in front of fellow inmates to instil fear.
Prisoners said that top jail officials, including senior Liyu police officials, not only ordered torture, rape, and denial of food, but personally took part in the rape and torture.
In overcrowded cells at night, head prisoners further violently interrogated detainees, passing notes on to prison leaders, who then selected people for further punishment. The serious overcrowding, torture, starvation and disease outbreaks.
Many children are born in Jail Ogaden, including some allegedly conceived through rape by prison guards. Female prisoners described giving birth inside their cells, in many cases without health care or even water. Almost all of the former prisoners interviewed said that they had not been to court or been charged with any crime. Former judges told Human Rights Watch that Somali Region officials pressured them to sentence detainees they have never met or seen any evidence on to prison terms.
The Liyu police, established after that period, have repeatedly committed similar crimes in the Somali Region, continuing the pattern of collective punishment. Liyu police incursions into Oromia Regional State beginning in have left hundreds dead.
About one million people from those areas were displaced. Torture is a serious problem throughout Ethiopia and Human Rights Watch regularly receives reports of abusive interrogations countrywide. Many former detainees said that the most visibly injured, children, and pregnant women were held in secret rooms or moved out of the prison ahead of commission visits. Others said they were told what to say to commission officials. Those who spoke to them openly faced brutal reprisals. This commission should also develop a process to evaluate the cases of each prisoner currently held at Jail Ogaden, and either release them or charge them with a crime based on credible evidence.
Abiy should continue to publicly condemn torture and take action on Jail Ogaden to show he is serious about stopping torture and ending impunity. I was kept in solitary confinement in complete darkness for most of my [three-year] detention. I was only taken out at night for torture. During the day, I was given very little food — one bread and occasionally a bit of stew. They also raped my wife [who was also in Jail Ogaden]. She gave birth to a child that was not mine there. They would tie my hands together with rope, put us in the pool deeper than my head and keep you in.
They would put around 10 people in that pool at a time. How did you support them? When night falls the evaluations start. It is only inmates doing this to each other, in the morning the report is given to the guards. The more you deny, the worse the torture. The better the confession, the less the beatings. I witnessed hundreds of men being undressed completely. It was at night and it was raining and muddy. They had called us out of the room, told us to take our clothes off, lie down and roll in the mud. Then some of us were taken back to our rooms naked.
Once you go back into the room you can let go. The guards took pictures of this laughing. We were always being told to humiliate each other, but the worst was one day they brought together a number of prisoners, and each was told to beat another person to death.
They had metal sticks to give us for this. I was told if I refused then I had to kill myself. None of the children born while I was there had any [professional] help, only from the women prisoners.
I requested [medical care] treatment for my birth because I knew I would give birth soon. They laughed. I asked for extra water. They refused.
So I gave birth in the jail. The women had a sharp piece of metal they used to cut the umbilical cord and they tied it themselves. Every night I could hear them hitting people.
I heard so much crying. We lived in a constant state of fear that we would be next. I was one of the people they were hiding. They took me to the military camp, Garbassa. First time I was there for seven days. They took out elderly women, and those who had been beaten in the face, or had wounds, or had small children.
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