27 February 2013: The Suri people inhabiting the Lower Omo region are being chased of their lands, imprisoned, tortured and even killed by the regime in Addis Abeba that is overseeing the huge Gilgel Gibe III project and because it has given vast tract of land in Lower Omo valley (500,000 hectares) to mainly Malaysian (Indian and Chinese are also present) firms that plan to grow cereals, palm oils, etc for export. Read More…

International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation

06 February 2013: On this UN sponsored day, SOCEPP joins the international community in condemning female genital mutilation which is practiced in quite a few parts of Ethiopia and Africa. Read More…

03 January 2013: The repressive regime in Addis Abeba has not only condemned as guilty Muslim Ethiopians who had peacefully protested for their rights but is now asserting that it has captured some eight Al Qaida “ terrorists” trained by the Somali Al Shabab and infiltrated from Kenya and Somalia with arms and explosives for sabotage in Ethiopia. Up to now no one has been told on the identity of these so-called infiltrators or subversives. Read More...

KUWAIT CITY (Arabtimes) — An Ethiopian woman died when she fell from the window of a domestic employment agency in Hawally. According to security sources, when the Operations Room of Ministry of Interior received information from the building guard about a woman lying on the ground and bleeding, police and paramedics rushed to the location and found the woman bleeding profusely from the head.

Paramedics examined her and discovered she had succumbed to severe head injury. Officers from General Department for Criminal Evidences rushed to the location and referred the corpse to the Forensics Department. Preliminary investigations by authorities revealed that the victim fell from the window of a domestic employment agency in the building. They also noticed that the victim was wearing ‘abaya’ without any underclothes. They were informed that the woman was at the agency with three other Ethiopian women.

Police summoned the three women and the owner of the agency to the police station where they said that they were sleeping at the time of the incident and were not aware of her death until the police notified them about it. A case was registered for further investigations.

Letter to his Excellency Mr. Jacob Zuma

27 December 2012: Mr. President, SOCEPP is an Ethiopian human rights organization (established March 1995) that wants to bring to your honorable attention the fate of one of its member, TARIKU ABZA, who is detained illegally in the Sun City prison, South Africa, since March 2012. Numerous Ethiopian refugees are detained in this and other prisons … Read More…

(Email letter received by SOCEPP as is): At this time we are living by hiding our selves, we are living with out legal and physical protection, b/c we are forgotten and discriminated by UNHCR and COR. We have problems of security, language, Ethnicity, religion and socio – cultural ones. We are prosecuted, beaten, imprisoned several times. We are requesting for durable solution and we need immediate assistance b/c Sudan is not sufficient or doing enough to protect our life. Read More...

15 November 2012: SOCEPP has written a number of letters to the new Libyan authorities to respect the rights of Ethiopians and all African migrant workers and refugees but it has received no reply whatsoever. SOCEPP has received the report that hundreds of Ethiopians are detained in containers in the Libyan desert and extorted to bring money from their relatives to get a release. The suffering of Ethiopian women is particularly socking while latest freports indicate that young Ethiopian men have been gang raped in both Tripoli and Benghazi and vilified for their Christian faith. Read More...

Strongly Condemn the Repression against Muslim Ethiopians

31 October 2012: The regime in Addis Abeba has intensified its repression against Ethiopian Muslims and the world should condemn it. Ten Muslim Ethiopian have been killed in Wello, dozens arrested all over the country and twenty nine Muslims charged as terrorists on the basis of the convenient anti terror law promulgated by the regime and used already to accuse and jail independent journalists. Read More…

15 October 2012: The regime inn Addis Abeba whom those claiming to fight modern slavery call democratic is engaged in the trafficking of young women to the Arab countries of the Middle East, Egypt and Libya. And latest reports indicate that close to a hundred of these trafficked women are suffering in Arab jails after having been tortured. Read More...

30 September 2012: Sudan has joined the repressive regime in Addis Ababa in violating the basic human rights of Ethiopians. It has deported Ethiopian refugees, allowed TPLF agents to run wild and free in the Sudan and more. We highlight here two recent and alarming developments: Read More...

20 September 2012: SOCEPP had in the past repeatedly called for the arrest and trial of Haile Mariam Desalegn as one of those responsible for the Loqqee (Hawassa) massacre of more than a hundred Sidamas on May 24/2002. Others held responsible for the massacre that no one has denied took place were and are Meles Maremo, Bereket Semon, Abadula Gemeda, Tadesse Kassa and Mulugeta Alemseged (the latter is ambassador to Italy and is accused of organizing the assassination of his own brother, Afewerk in the refugee camp, Thika, just outside of Nairobi, Kenya). Read More...

12 September 2012: The tyrant is dead but his system of oppression continues. On Ethiopian New Year Day (September 11), the regime has released more than 1500 prisoners of whom two were Swedish journalists jailed for coming into the Ogaden together with the ONLF. No political prisoner has been released and the ”justice” minister of the unjust regime has declared there are none whatsoever. Read More...

Open Letter to Somaliland: Stop Deporting Ethiopian Refugees

06 September 2012: The government of president Ahmed Mahamoud Silanyo has continued to deport Ethiopian refugees and the fate of the deportees is not clearly known. SOCEPP has addressed this open letter to protest against the deportations and to call on Somaliland to stop this illegal act that violates the human rights of Ethiopians and exposes them to torture and even possible death. Read More...

Open Letter to Amnesty International Secretariat

04 September 2012: Many of the disappeared ignored by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and others concern members and leaders of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and a few organizations that are deemed to be “Amhara”. Read More…

Denounce Torture and Brutality against Ethiopian Muslims

29 July 2012: Members of the elected representatives of the Muslim community such as Chairman (Ustaz) Abubakar Ahmed, spokesperson Ahmedin Jebel and committee members Kamil Shemsu, Adem Kemil, Sultan Aman, Meket Muhe and Jemal Yassin have all been jailed. Reliable reports affirm that at least the outspoken Ahemedin Jebel has been repeatedly tortured. Torture is routine in the regime’s and dungeons. The Meles regime has violated the freedom of belief and almost all human rights of the Muslims and all citizens. More than a thousand Muslims are in prison and the whereabouts of most is unknown. The regime is also propagating a divisive propaganda trying to divide Moslems and Christians. The protest continues as does the repression by the regime’s special Agazi forces and security forces. Read More...

World Refugee Day and the Plight of Ethiopian Refugees

20 June 2012: As the world celebrates World Refugee Day it is necessary to emphasize that the plight of Ethiopian refugees all over the world has worsened. From Israel to South Africa, from Malawi to Libya and Yemen, from Lampadusa Italy to the Middle East, Ethiopian refugees are the targets of deportation, torture, rape, repression and death. Read More...

Their case has been ignored by local and international human rights organizations for no expressed reason. All queries by SOCEPP have been met with no reply from the ruling front that has since the late nineties intensified its actions against the clandestine EPRP in all possible ways. SOCEPP has not forgotten. SOCEPP remembers. These fighters for democracy who have been disappeared (and probably killed) are the real heroes and martyrs of the Ethiopian people. SOCEPP demands from the ruling front an official accounting on the fate of the disappeared. Read More…

Open Letter to the UN Commissioner for Human Rights

07 June 2012: High Commissioner, Your recent statement that the killing of 100 people at Houla (Syria) “may constitute a crime against humanity” has prompted us to remind you that the massacre of more 1000 Anuaks (Ethiopians) in Gambella a few years back is surely a crime against humanity. Read More…

27 May 2012: SOCEPP, a human rights organization working for an end to the violation of human rights in Ethiopia, has been alarmed by the recent news that refugees from Gambella region are threatened by a deportation back to Ethiopia, from where they fled in the first place. Read More…

May 3 – World Press Freedom Day

03 May 2012: The regime of Meles Zenawi has been indentified and condemned as one of the worst predators of the free press in the world. Its latest victims are Woubshet Taye, Eskinder Nega and Reeyot Alemu, jailed and condemned as terrorists for writing and reporting on the news and the sad plight of the Ethiopian people. Read More...

Repression against the Press Intensifies in Ethiopia

03 May 2012: One of the State controlled courts has sentenced the editor of the FITH newspaper, Ato Temesgen Desalegn, to four months imprisonment or a fine of 2000 Birr. Reports indicate that the Meles regime is out to close the FITH newspaper, perhaps the last of the relatively free press in the country. Read More...

Letter to Mr. Bill Gates,

08 April 2012: SOCEPP addresses this letter to you assuming that news report of your two days trip to Ethiopia and what you said there are on the whole true. If not, it would not be the first time that the State owned news agency (ENA) has propagated a gross lie. Read More...

Denounce Ethnic Cleansing against Amharas

27 March 2012: Thousands of Amharas have been forced out of the Southern Bench Maji zone in what is appearing as a regime instigated ethnic cleansing and daylight expropriation/robbery. The victims have flocked to Addis Abeba and their search for shelter at the Kidist Mariam Church ahs been blocked by the Meles appointed and much reviled pope called Abune Paulos. The forced eviction of Amharas is continuing. The ethnic cleansing of Amharas has been going since 1991, the year the Meles group took over power in Addis Abeba. The ruling group haling from Tigrai incorporated the regions of Welkiat,Tegede, Tselemt and parts of Wello inhabited by Amharas into the now expanded Tigrai region. Read More…

27 March 2012: More or less ignored by the UNHCR that was supposed to assure their protection, Ethiopian refugees in the Sudan are facing grave dangers and difficulties. Already, more than thousand of them languish in Kober and other Sudanese prisons without due process or legal protection. Dozens have been forcefully deported back to Ethiopia and jailed, disappeared or killed (deported elder Major Atanaw Wassie died under custody denied any medical care). Read More…

26 March 2012: Reports reaching SOCEPP reveal that armed police of the Meles regime have infested the historic Waldiba Monastery and are engaged in a hut to hut search operation, violating sacred quarters and manhandling the priests and monks. A monk who gave an interview to the Voice of America Amharic service is being sought by the police. Read More…

26 March 2012: The Meles regime holds too many members of the All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP) in its secret jails and labor camps like Zwai, Dedesa,etc. In the eyes of the regime this party is considered as Amhara, an ethnic group much hated and repressed by the Tigrean chauvinist Meles regime. Read More…

Repression Intensifies against Arena Tigray Organization

22 March 2012: Arena Tigray, an opposition organization operating in Tigray region and grouped within the Medrek front has denounced the repression unleashed by the Meles regime against it all over Tigray. It is to be noted that two years ago Arena member and candidate for the election, Ato Aregawi Gebre Yohannes, was murdered in cold blood by the regime’s assassins. Read More…

Sale of Women to Modern Slavery Continued

18 March 2012: A few days after the brutal death of domestic worker Alem Dechassa in Beirut (Lebanon)—she was beaten in broad daylight by her employer and later allgedly committed suicide in a hospiotal, the regime in Addis Abeba has revealed that it would send some 45,000 Ethiopian women to Saudi Arabia, a country notorious for mistreating domestic workers (and all women for that matter). Read More…

14 March 2012: The Ethiopian domestic worker whose beating outside her country's consulate was widely publicized on video committed suicide Wednesday morning, Ethiopia’s consul general in Lebanon confirmed to The Daily Star. Alem Dechasa, 33, hanged herself using her bed sheets between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. … Read More…

06 March 2012: The teachers' strike has been spreading to other places. Tach Armacheho & Debarke are among the areas where teachers waged strikes recently. Dil Fana School has been closed. Read More…

02 March 2012: The number of public hospitals has not increased, the situation in the education area is dismal, millions are starving but the repressive regime of Meles Zenawi has now decided to expand its prisons and build new ones at a cost of hundreds millions of Birr. The first stage concerns the expansion of the Kaliti prison on the outskirts of Addis Abeba, the Shoa Robit and Zewaye concentration type camps, the prison at Shashemene and Dire Dawa. The second stage will involve prisons at Bahir Dar and Gondar, the Dedesa and Bir Sheleko labor camps, the secret prisons in Tigrai and other places. Read More...

26 February 2012: Ethiopian teachers hard hit by the galloping inflation have been trying to legally claim their rights and voice their protests and dozens have been arrested mainly in Dabat (Gondar region) and other towns all over Ethiopia. SOCEPP calls for their immediate release and the respect of the rights of teachers and all Ethiopians. Read More…

24 Febru ary 2012: The regime of Omar Beshir in the Sudan has intensified the repression against Ethiopian political refugees as it strives to placate the Meles regime and achieve its sectarian political gains. Sudanese police have raided houses and rounded up Ethiopians in Omdurman and many parts of Khartoum. A truck carrying Ethiopian refugees to be deported had an accident and 42 Ethiopians and two Sudanese police have been killed. The cry for the UNHCR has been without any response. Read More...

27 January 2012: Sad as it is, the State of Norway has broken with its worthy past of being the land of asylum and refuge. Nowadays, xenophobia is the vogue and real politick determines the policy of the Norwegian government. Ethiopian refugees have become the visible victim of this callous and cruel slide into the realm of violator of human rights on the part of Norway. Read More...

Denounce the repressive regime’s illegal sentencing of journalists and political dissenters

26 January 2012: The State controlled court in Addis Abeba has sentenced a number of journalists and political dissenters to years of imprisonment and thousands of Birr fine. Thus, Journalists Woubshet and Ms Reyot have been sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment and a 33,000 Birr fine. Read More…

21 January 2012L: SOCEPP calls on all international human rights organizations to condemn the planned IGAD accord aimed at repressing political refugees and exiles that are to face deportation as “criminals”. Read More…

15 December 2011: Member of the Israeli Knesset have endorsed a new anti infiltration bill that criminalizes the entry of refugees into Israel. The text of the bill contains the following provisions: Automatic Criminalization of any person’s entry into Israel without a permit – with no discernment or consideration of the circumstances of his or her entry. Anyone who helps asylum seekers would be imprisoned for five to seven years. Read More…

December 14: 8 years since the massacre of Anuaks in Gambella

14 December 2011: December 14/2003, the troops and security forces of the Meles regime went on a rampage in Gambella killing close to 500 Anuaks in one single day. The death toll in the Gambella massacre is high as 1,500. The culprits have been identified but never been accused or brought before a court of law. Read More…

December 10: World Human Rights Day

10 December 2011: The violation of human rights all over the world has increased alarmingly and nowhere else more grossly than in Ethiopia where a brutal regime enjoys blanket backing from foreign western powers. Read More...

The effort to combat AIDS has been sabotaged by the Meles regime that had placed the wife of Meles, the Queen of corruption Azeb Mesfin/Gola, as the head of al the anti AIDS agencies and bodies. Read More...

SOCEPP has received a new report on the disappearance of Ato Jilalo Siraj Sherif. Ato Jilalo was detained by the Meles regime on March 1/2011 and has been disappeared since. Read More...

Ethiopians who were sent for studies by the former regime to the Soviet Union are facing enormous difficulties without any possibility to resettle in another country. A case in point is the sad plight of Ethiopians in Kyrgyzstan who are stranded in the country since the 1980s. Ethiopians in Kyrgyzstan face horrific racial abuse and brutal attacks. Nassir was stabbed many times while Habtamu was beaten to death and the police refused to touch his body and ordered Ethiopians to transport him to the morgue. Read More…

Andualem Alemayehu is an Ethiopian dissident, a one time member of an opposition organization, who was forced to flee from his country. He went to Eritrea and from there he broadcast radio programs exposing the Meles Zenawi regime for its human rights violations and crimes. For reasons unknown, the Eritrean authorities sent Andualem to the Sudan where he was promptly arrested and jailed in the central Kober prison. SOCEPP issued a statement calling for his immediate release and a stop on any deportation process. Alas, the Sudanese authorities have now deported Andualem and handed him over to the regime he had been condemning. Read More…

08 November 2011: More than 118 Eritreans forced to sign a desire to repatriate are awaiting deportation though they have complained that they would be facing persecution in Eritrea if they return. Egyptian police have collaborated with the traffickers to hold refugees for ransom demanding thousands of dollars from the relatives for the release of the refugees. Read More…

Abera Yemane-Ab released

05 November 2011: After 18 years of illegal imprisonment Abera Yemane-ab has been released yesterday in Addis Abeba. Abera went to Addis Abeba on December16/1993 for a Peace and reconciliation Conference and was arrested from the airport and kept in detention until yesterday. Abera’s released was order by a court in Addis Ababa but the regime of Meles Zenawi refused to let him go. Read More…

Torture in Ethiopia

03 November 2011: Torture is routine in Ethiopia. It is practiced to obtain information and/or to punish the prisoner and to damage him/her physically and psychologically. A number of prisoners have their hands paralyzed and/or broken from beatings and being tied for long by plastic ropes which block blood circulation in the arms. Read More…

29 October 2011: Colonel Tadesse Muluneh, an Ethiopian air force pilot during the previous regime and one time leader of the Eritrea based Ethiopian Patriotic Front, was detained in Asmara last year and has been disappeared since. Colonel Tadesse had resigned from his leadership post and was trying to leave Eritrea to get special treatment abroad for his back ailment. Read More….

08 October 2011: The regime of Meles Zenawi has made a mockery of justice throughout the process of what it called the Red Terror trials and it has now capped this with its arbitrary pardon of no less than 16 confirmed top criminals while it continues to hold 35,000 political prisoners in its dungeons and prison camps. Read More...

Anti Terror or Anti Free Press? Brutal repression against independent journalists

18 September 2011: The repressive regime of Meles Zenaw has decreed a convenient anti terrorism law that is invoking to justify its repression against free journalist and all political dissidents. The so called law is such that a mild critic of the regime qualifies as terrorism. Read More…

17 September 2011: Andualem Alemayehu, an Ehiopian who had been expressing, over the Eritrean Television, his disapproval of the Meles Zenawi regime is presently in the central prison of Khartoum awaiting possible deportation. Read More…

16 September 2011: The ruling EPRDF regime is panicking. It has arrested and tortured many journalists, dissidents and political personalities in the last few months so viciously that may are suggesting it is in a state of panic. Referring to a convenient anti terrorism law it has unleashed its repressive dogs against all and sundry and detained many political personalities. Read More…

Let us help journalist Araya Tesfamariam

10 September 2011: had in the past reported on the suffering of journalist Araya who had beaten and harassed not only in Ethiopia but also in India where he had sought asylum. Here below is the letter he has penned to all human rights organizations and to Ethiopian in the Diaspora. Read More…

Ethiopians in Libya still facing danger

01 September 2011: The situation concerns not only Ethiopians but many sub Saharan refugees who are still stranded in Tripoli and other Libyan towns. Most of these refugees are in hiding afraid that they would be identified as “mercenaries” and brutalized or killed by the rebels. Read More…

Repression against political dissidents on the rise

01 September 2011: Amidst reports that political prisoners and jailed journalists have been tortured, the regime of Meles Zenawi has now jailed two political leaders accusing at least one of them belonging to a terrorist group. Read More…

Political prisoners tortured brutally

25 August 2011: The Meles Zenawi regime has often been accused of systematic and widespread torture of all political prisoners and present reports have confirmed this as true. The president of the Ethiopian National Unity Party, Ato Zerihun Gebre Igziabher, was detained by the security forces and tortured brutally for two days. Read More…

EPRDF regime arrests, tortures and deports Djiboutians

04 August 2011: Soldiers of the Meles Zenawi army arrested ten civilians within Djiboutian territory between Gawah and Bahlo (in the District of Tadjoura) while they had come from Moussa Ali region in search of a watering point on the 18th of July 2011. Read More…

Open letter to the UNHCR: Stop harassing Ethiopian refugees in Yemen

09 July 2011: The expected would be to call on the UNHCR to protect refugees and asylum seekers but the strange behavior and acts of the UNHCR office in Yemen has forced us to call upon you to protect the refugees from it. Read More…

Teacher and columnist illegally detained in Addis Abeba

26 June 2011: On Tuesday, June 21. the security services of the ruling EPRDF apprehended teacher Riyot Alemu from her work place at the Kechenie Medhanie Alem secondary school in Addis Abeba. Riyot also worked as a columnist for the weekly Fitih (Justice) paper and was also an editor with the Awramba Times many of whose editors and journalists have been detained and harassed at tone time or another. Read More…

20 June 2011: From Yemen to Lampadusa,from Libya to Norway the plight of Ethiopian refugees has worsened. Hundreds have died trying to reach safe harbors, hundreds are in squalid prisons all over the world, many more are facing deportation threats and a substantial number have been victimized, beaten and raped by human traffickers. Read More...

14 June 2011: SOCEPP has received the following letter of ALERT from concerned sources. “ Six Female Students of Wollo University, Kombolcha campus (Amhara Region) were abducted by security forces on June 01,2011. Three days after the day the students were taken from their dormitories, their whereabouts is still unknown. ..." Read More...

JUNE 1991—TPLF/EPRDF forces, backed by others, attacked EPRP/A forces in Gondar and Gojjam and they were fortunate enough to capture several EPRP leaders while others like Geleb Dafla, Wasihun, Dereje etc got martyred.

Tsegaye Gebre Medhin (Debteraw). Sitotaw Hussein, Yishak Denre Tsion, Belette Amha (all members of the Leadership Committee),Hagos Bezabih, Teklai Gebnre Sellasie and Desalegn Amsalu were captured and Azanaw Demile was deported with others from the Sudan. All have disappeared since. Since 1993, other EPRP members were also caught in Addis Abeba, Arba Minch and Bahr Dar and also disappeared. In this case, we can mention Ms Aberash Berta, Lemma Haile, Tesfaye Kebede, Wondusirak Desta, Abebe Ainekulu, Mot Baynor, journalist Berhanu Ijigu,Dilu Gebeyehu, Abayneh Shiferaw, Getachew Abebe,Getachew Workineh.Tamrat Gizachew, Dinku Shifferaw, Adugna Adem,Yosef Teshome. Read More...

04 June 2011: Arba Minch students (Gamo Goffa, Southern Ethiopia) are still on strike refusing to pay levies for the so called Renaissance Dam (80 billion Birr/close US$ 5 billion) and for the “Development” bodies of the government. Both operations spell robbery and the shameless fleecing of the people as the Ethiopian majority living in abject poverty can hardly finance a billion dollars dam. Read More...

30 May 2011: A few days ago four Ethiopian refugees were killed in the ASABA area of Sana’a,Yemen, as result of the fighting between government forces and armed rebels. Very many Ethiopian refugees are facing death in many part of Yemen and their attempt to go to the Sana‘a office of the UNHCR has not borne fruit Read More....

27 May 2011: The Sudanese government handed two leading members of the Chadian armed opposition to Ndjamena two days before a tripartite summit in Khartoum gathering President Idriss Deby and Central African President François Bozizé with President Omer Al-Bashir. Read More...

25 May 2011: May 24/2002, EPRDF special forces were unleashed on peaceful demonstrators at Loque (Hawassa). Dozens of people lay dead. The violent repression was commanded by top EPRDF officials including Abay Tsehaye, Bereket Semon, Haile Mariam Desalegn (now deputy prime minister), Mulugeta Alemseged (now ambassador in Rome). Meles Miremo and Shifferaw Shigute. Many who were imprisoned at the time are still languishing in the dungeons of the brutal regime. Read More...

06 May 2011: To compound matters, the repressive regime of Meles Zenawi has launched the brutal action of bulldozing no less than 5000 homes in the city of Makalle (Tigrai). 15, 000 people have been left without shelter. Two kinder gardens and a church are amongst those to be bulldozed. The homes were built by the people most of who forcefully deported from Eritrea … Read More

Freedom of the press banned in Ethiopia

03 May 2011: It is sad to note that the EPRDF regime, one of the worst violators of the freedom of the press, is making a lot of noise to observe this day. Read More...

05 April 2011: The president of Djibouti, Omar Gelleh, has changed the Constitution to be able to run for a third term election on April 8 and, in the process, has intensified the repression unleashed against the people. Jean Paul Noel Abdi, chairman of the Djibouti Human Rights Association, is charged and in prison while dozen others are being tortured for staging protest demonstrations. Read More…

27 March 2011: Following the arrests of many members of the opposition, an arrest that focused on Oromos, the regime of Meles Zenawi has rounded up dozens of youngsters in Addis Abeba and detained them in the central prison (Ma’eklawi) alleging they are involved in “planning and staging demonstrations”. Sources close to the regime claim that the youngsters are linked to anti regime opposition organizations. Read More...

16 March 2011: SOCEPP had in the past publicized the disappearance, since 1993, of trade union leader Abebe Ainekulu and Wondu Sirak Desta from Bahr Dar and journalist Berhanu Ijigu from Addis Abeba. All three were EPRP members and they have been, like almost all other EPRP detainees, disappeared since. It is important to note that Bekele Sharew who was taken in Yismala (Gojjam) and kept in solitary confinement in Addis Abeba died of the mistreatment he received in detention. Read More...

24 February 2011: In the deserts of Libya hundreds of Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees have been languishing in containers and other holding cells. With the crisis in Libya and the claims that mercenaries holding Ethiopian passports have been arrested in Benghazi and other places there is a strong fear that Ethiopian refugees may be targeted for mob violence. Read More...

16 Janauary 2011: SOCEPP has received reliable reports both from Gondar and Khartoum that more and more Welkait locals have been internally displaced to Gondar and forced into exile into the Sudan. Immigration officers in Khartoum report an increasing number of Welkait refugees crossing into the Sudan. Most are farmers whose lands have been taken over by the ruling regime’s agro industrial companies and by Tigrean settlers. This is yet another gross violation of rights by the Meles Zenawi regime and SOCEPP condemns it with vigor. Read More…

09 January 2011: The recent drowning of more than 89 Ethiopian asylum seekers near the Yemeni coast has cast a dark and urgent light on the plight of Ethiopian refugees. Yemen holds close to 1500 refugees in a desert prison and the UNHCR has proved totally incapable to protect the right of the refugees. Kenya continues to imprison, mistreat and even deport Ethiopian refugees. The Omar Beshir government does the same in Northern Sudan. Some of the deported are still in the Kaliti prison in Addis Abeba. Read More...

13 December 2010: On December 13/ 2003 soldiers and security personnel of the ruling EPRDF killed more than 400 Anuaks (some say the number is much more than that) in a murderous campaign that lasted for days. The brutal massacre was ordered by Meles Zenawi himself and two other top officials of the Tigrean front/TPLF/, Abaye Tsehaye and Dr. Barnabas, are also to be blamed for the crime. None of them has been brought before a court of law and a fake inquiry just made some soldiers responsible for the killings in an pparent cover up. Read More...

13 December 2010: There is a news report that the heads of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Catholic and Evangelical churches and the Ethiopian Moslems Council have together met with former regime’s top officials who are convicted prisoners in Kaliti. The officials are accused and convicted of crimes against the people including the anti-EPRP Red Terror which killed more than 250,000 people. Read More...

December 10 – World Huma Rights Day: Worsening Human Rights Violations in Ethiopia

10 December 2010 : From the notorious Kaliti in Addis Abeba up to the prison camps of Zwai, Dedesa, Shoa Robit and the very many secret prisons ( in Addis Abeba too), the regime holds some 35,000 political prisoners. Preteens are also held in many prisons often for the alleged crimes of their “rebel’ fathers. Dozens of political prisoners (like Tsegaye Gebre Medhin since 1991 and Ms Aberash Berta since 1993, journalist Berhanu Ijigu, trade unionist Abebe Ainekulu,) have been disappeared. Read More...

Word Aids Day: the Effect Worsens, the Embezzlement Increases in Ethiopia

01 December 2010: The ruling clique in Addis Abeba declared boldly and falsely that the damage of AIDS has decreased in Ethiopia and congratulated itself for the “success”. However, the truth is that the number of AIDS victims has increased and the money given by foreign donors to combat AIDS has been swindled by none other than the wife of Meles Zenawi himself. Read More...

Open letter to the UNHCR: Ethiopian refugees in Yemen subjected to mistreatment

18 November 2010: One of the neighboring countries where the UNHCR is criticized for NOT adequately protecting Ethiopian refugees is Yemen. Recently the International Organization for Migration reported that “about 1000 Ethiopian refugees are stranded near the Saudi border in Yemen without food, water or shelter”. Reports reaching SOCEPP from other desolate camps like the Al Qeres camp, 120km outside of Aden city in the South, confirm the same situation of deprivation and ill treatment for hundreds of refugees. Read More...

04 November 2010: SOCEPP was pleased when concerned individuals and the BBc reported, albeit very belatedly, that the aid for famine victims collected through Live Aid/Band Aid and via other NGOs had been diverted by the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which is now in power, to buy arms from China using Sudanese and Somali user-end certificates. Some of the money was deposited at the Saudi American Bank in Jeddah. Read More...

04 November 2010: The Somali insurgent group called Al Shabab has brutally executed two young girls alleging they were spying for Ethiopia. Despite the very many bizarre things happening in the Horn of Africa a 15 years old spy girl sounds very incredible in for this troubled region. SOCEPP has condemned the brutal actions of the Al Shabab (stoning, cross amputations, lapidating, executions, torture, desecration of graves, etc) and the wanton murder of Ethiopian refugees as did happen in Bosasso where more than 30 Ethiopians were killed by armed men associated with the Al Shabab. Read More…

16 October 2010: The right to food is a basic right that remains grossly violated by successive regimes in Ethiopia. Presently 12-14 million people depend on food handout from international sources and hunger has become a constant and deadly companion of millions. Read More…

6 October 2010: Meles Zenawi has been forced to release Judge Birtukan Midiksa, it is imperative that all human rights activists do not lose sight of the fact that close to 35,000 political prisoners are still languishing in the prisons and prison camps of Meles Zenawi. Of these many prisoners, SOCEPP will like to mention ABERA YEMANEAB, illegaly detained since 1993 and serving a 25 years sentence in Kaliti under trumped up charges. Another female prisoner that SOCEPP wants to highlights is Ms ABERASH BERTA, disappeared since 1993 after being arrested in Addis Abeba. Read More…

16 September 2010: Mr. President: My name is Ali Hussein Saeed. I am writing you to officially condemn in the strongest possible terms your University’s hosting of Ethiopian head of state Meles Zenawi at this month’s global forum. … I am truly shocked and outraged that an institution as distinguished and world-reknowned as Columbia University would allow this man on its premises, let alone invite him, the best example of bad governance and brutal repression, to give an address on the topic of Ethiopia and African leadership! Read More…

16 September 2010: Two individuals (one in Toronto and one in Ottawa) who have been illegally using the name of SOCEPP Canada have continued to besmirch the name of SOCEPP and have recently associated themselves openly with political factions calling for a political "united front" against the regime in Ethiopia. Read More…

Ethiopian refugees in peril in Kenyan Capital

15 July 2010: Kenyan police have launched raids in Pangani and other Nairobi districts where many Ethiopians refugees live. More than 35 have already been arrested. The justification made for these brutal actions is the need for security, the anti terror campaign and to flush out so called "illegal aliens". During the raid many refugees have been mistreated, beaten and in some cases even robbed by the police. Read More…

Murderers of Mebatsion (Jattene) Ali and Tesfaye Tadesse still at large

24 June 2010: Mebatsion Ali, also known as Jattene Ali, a former

district administrator of Borena, was murdered in a Nairobi Hotel by TPLF gunmen (both hailed from Tigrai). The killers hid in the Nairobi EPRDF embassy until the embassy was able to secretly take them out of Kenya to Tanzania and to send them back to Ethiopia. At the time, the names of the two killers and the man who denounced Jattene, a Borena born man called Guyo, were exposed in statements made by the EPRP for one. The murder was organized and supervised by TPLF general Haielom (now dead) stationed in Awassa. Other TPLF agents were later to murder, in the Thika refugee camp just outside of Nairobi, Afewerk Alemseged, a former official in the fallen regime (whose brother Mulugeta Alemseged is still Meles' private security chief). Read More…

24 June 2010: Jemua Ruphael Amen has been sentenced to death by the State controlled court in Addis Abeba. Jenua was the former chief of the planning and economic bureau in Benishangul Gumuz’s regional government and he has been accused of forming the Benishangul Gumuz Liberation Movement and of being trained militarily in Eritrea. The BGLM is accused of killing a number of people and soldiers in the Assossa region. Three other members of the Movement were sentenced to 10 years in prison. Read More…

As the world observes June 20 refugee day, SOCEPP is sadly obliged to state that the plight of Ethiopian refugees has worsened all over the world. Hundreds of refugees perish in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean s they try o make their way to Yemen or Italy, immigration authorities deny them asylum on the flimsiest of pretexts, Libya holds hundreds in desert prisons, Sudan recently deported 48 Ethiopian refugees to placate the authorities in Addis Abeba. Egypt routinely shoots and kills Ethiopian refugees trying to enter Israel and Israel itself holds dozens of refugees in prisons. Fortress Europe is in place and from London to Oslo, Ethiopians have been denied asylum status and quite a few sent back to a very uncertain fate. Many female refugees have been raped by border police in many places. Read More...

VOA Amahric Service continues with presenting frauds and criminals

27 May 2010: SOCEPP not only strongly protested against the VOA Amharic service sympathetic interviews of those who deny the brutal Red Terror ever took place in Ethiopia but also launched a protest petition that is still being signed by Ethiopians and foreigners aggrieved by this act and travesty. However, the arrogant reporters of the VOA Amharic service have continued with their condemnable action of interviewing a fraud from Canada who claims to be SOCEPP Canada but have also once again given the mike to a Red Terror criminal called Berhanu Damte (also known as Debur) who has yet to pay for many lives lost because of him as a collaborator and official of the totalitarian regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Read More…

SOCEPP Protest Letter to the VOA Director

15 May 2010: This is really one letter we really would have preferred not to write. We know at this time that the repressive regime in Ethiopia is trying to or jamming the VOA broadcast to Ethiopian and heaping accusations against the service. SOCEPP has firmly condemned the regime's measures as arrogant violation against the freedom of the press and, despite many reservations over the years as regards the VOA Ethiopian service and some of its reporters, refrained from commenting this way or that on the VOA service to Ethiopia. Read More…

13 May 2010: The Meles Zenawi regime is responsible for the brutal murder and disappearance of a number of leaders of the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), an opposition organization, and should account for the crime without any equivocation. Meles Zenawi's group collbaorated with the Sudan to jail and disappear and/or kill the following leaders of the Ethiopian Democratic Union: Read More…

20 April 2010: Journalist Araya Tesfamariam, better known as Eyersualem Araya and much admired for his incisive articles (in the now banned ETHIOP newspaper/magazine) exposing the human rights violations of the Meles regime, was attacked on the evening of April 16 in New Delhi by thugs identified as agents of the Meles Zenawi regime. Araya is a refugee in New Delhi with his 14 years old daughter who is sick and needs constant medical care. Read More...

Illegal action against Oromo dissidents

05 April 2010: The regime of Meles Zenawi has for long targeted militants of the Oromo ethnic group and undertaken repression in Oromo inhabited areas. In line with this, a federal court has on March 31 sentenced an Oromo political prisoner to death and another to life in prison while handing down long term prison sentences to 13 other political prisoners, including a TV journalist who is a mother of three children. Read More...

SOCEPP demands the release of all political prisoners not just their humane treatment in captivity

30 March 2010: It is encouraging to note that some members of the US congress and administration are finally expressing some criticism of the totalitarian regime in Addis Abeba, an ally in the so called US war against terror. Yet, we are forced to say too little too rare especially when we observe officials like the US undersecretary of State for African Affairs, Johnny Carson, call on the regime to "treat prisoners humanely". Read More…

Britain should stop supporting repressive regime in Ethiopia

SOCEPP, 26 March 2010: When the TPLF took over power, following the charade of a London conference, Britain became one of the foremost western countries to stand on the side of the ethnic discriminatory Meles regime. The head of the regime's intelligence, Kinfe Gebre Medhin (shot to death later as a result of a power struggle within the ruling group), were trained for a year in Britain, the police got Land Rovers and equipment from London and British intelligence officials helped the TPLF combat the opposition in Eastern African countries like Uganda and Kenya. The backing of Britain was total and real. Read More…

Political prisoner Brtukan Midiksa denied medical attention

SOCEPP, 24 March 2010: The irresponsible statement by Meles Zenawi ("Birtukan Midiksa is fine but she may have gained weight due to lack of exercise") highlights the callousness of the person leading the repressive EPRDF regime that has illegally imprisoned former Judge Birtukan Midiksa. The fact is Birtukan Midiksa, who was in solitary confinement for long in the notorious Kaliti prison, needs urgent medical care. Read More...

Meles Zenawi: trampling on information rights

SOCEPP, 19 March 2010: With the same arrogance that Meles Zenawi has often expressed when he dismisses all calls for the release of political prisoners ("there are none in Ethiopia!"), he has now gone on record boasting that he will order the jamming of the VOA Amharic service. Actually, with the help of the Chinese, the Meles regime has already tried to jam the VOA, and has jammed for the last six months the Finote Democracy radio ( a twice a week broadcast to Ethiopia in Amharic). Read More…

14 March 2010: Two weeks ago Captain (retired) Eshetu Mengiste was kidnapped in Harar by security forces, taken to a secret location, tortured brutally and his corpse thrown to the hyenas. Captain Eshetu was a well known critic of the Meles Zenawi regime. Similarly, two young friends, Abel Kuba and Dereje Mulugeta, were picked up by the secret police and have been disappeared .People have concluded that they have both been murdered given their known opposition to the Meles regime. Read More…

SOCEPP denounces the brutal murder of Aregawi G/Yohannes

09 March 2010: Once they saw him, two of them grabbed and neutralised him while the others stabbed him and slit his wrists. As he lay in the floor bleeding and dying the six who were pretending to quarrel calmly walked out together--murder mission accomplished. It took the police and the ambulance some two hours to arrive and take the body of Aregawi to the Shire Enda Sellasie hospital. Read More…

SOCEPP Condemns Railroading of 153 People in Negele Borena

02 March 2010: The Meles Zenawi regime has jailed close to 200 people in Negele Borena region since November 2009 and has now charged 153 on the basis of the so called anti terror law, a repressive legislation giving the authorities carte blanche to charge and imprison any one. Read More…

Repression in Gambella reported

17 February 2010: Latest reports from Gambella reveal that a number of students from the Wiburi School have been shot at and also detained in what the regime calls "attempts to disrupt the electoral process". It is to be recalled that few years back the regime’s cadres and security forces massacres close to a thousand Anuaks in Gambella under the direct order of Meles Zenawi, Abay Tsehaie and Dr. Barnabas. The students injured and jailed from the Wiburi school are…Read More...

Torture shames America itself: Protesting the injustice against Binyam Mohamed

13 February 2010: Ethiopian born, Britain resident, Binyam Mohamed, was arrested by Americans in Pakistan and then taken to Morocco, one of the countries where the CIA runs secret prisons. The British MI5 was fully aware of this fact. The guilt of Binyam was never proven and his long detention and suffering was illegal and a travesty of justice. Read More...

Open letter to Prsedinet Jacob Zuma: Protect Ethiopian refugees in South Africa

On February 7, shops owned by Ethiopians and other foreign nationals were looted and the refugees attacked in a service delivery protest that, as happened in July 2009, turned violent and xenophobic. The attacks took place in Siyathemba and Balfour townships. Read More…

SOCEPP has learnt that a number of Ethiopian asylum seekers are undergoing mistreatment and undue incarceration in isolated camps. This is worrying and totally unjust and SOCEPP once again calls on the authorities in Norway to redress the situation without any procrastination. Read More…

Open Letter to US Ambassador Donald Booth

03 Feb 2010: SOCEPP was pleased to hear your declaration, at the Senate Hearing to approve your nomination as US ambassador to Ethiopia, that you would exert pressure on the Meles Zenawi regime to respect the human rights of the Ethiopian people. Not that we have not heard such promises from previous US ambassadors who later turned to be apologists for the repressive regime in Addis Abeba with whom, as you yourself stated, the US has complex interests. Read More...

Letter to all immigration authorities: the right of asylum seeking Ethiopian refugees must be respected

03 Feb 2010: SOCEPP has learnt of the alarming development that quite a few countries have denied Ethiopian refugees asylum rights on grounds that are actually flimsy and without factual basis. … This is why SOCEPP calls on the USA and European countries like Britain, Norway, etc to redress the situation and to correctly and humanely reply to the asylum demands by Ethiopian refugees. Read More...

Sudan Acting against Ethiopian Refugees Again!

22 January 2010: Sudan is once again implementing measures that are negatively affecting the status of Ethiopian refuges and may end up by facilitating their deportation. It is to be noted that Sudan has in the past deported several refugees and one Azanaw Demile has disappeared while another (elder Atanaw Wassie) has died in detention and many still find themselves in Kaliti and other prisons. Read More.....

Call for the release of Bashir Makhral

04 January 2010: Canadian citizen Bashir Makhtal was, three years ago, arrested at a Kenyan border post, shackled and forced onto a night flight to Ethiopia, along with dozens of other foreign nationals. Once in Addis Ababa, he was placed in solitary confinement in a military prison. Railroaded through the state controlled courts in Addis Abeba, Bashir Makhtal was sentenced to life imprisonment on so called "terror related charges". Bashir was held in solitary for a long period with no access to lawyers and without being charged. Read More...