ST: Dozens arrested in Ethiopia's latest crackdown - rights group

Sunday 9 August 2009 02:30. August 5, 2009(ADDIS ABABA) -- Ethiopian security forces have arrested as many as dozens of people in the most recent wave of arrest to that has targeted prominent Oromo intellectuals, students and businessmen, a rights group said. The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) said that the crackdown was carried out in the Capital, Addis Ababa and in different parts of the regional state of Oromia by mainly security agents deployed in civilian clothing. The security service claimed that the local residents harbored and or supported the opposition armed group, Oromo Liberation Front, which Addis Ababa designates it as a terrorist group. Among the arrested people, Taye Araddo was one of the active participant in the Union of Oromo Students at Addis Ababa University. The HRLHA said this was not the first time for him to be imprisoned extra judicially. He spent three years without verdict from 2004 to 2006, although he was eventually acquitted. The rights group argued that the latest move violates article 17, No2 of the constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia which provides that "no person may be subjected to arbitrary arrest, and no person may be detained without a charge or conviction against him." Taye Danda'a along with many other Oromos currently is being held incommunicado at the Maikelawi Office of Central Criminal Investigation in Addis Ababa . Family members, friends and lawyers of the detainees have been denied visit.