eua_2014_full.pdf?utm_content=buffer4a392&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

EDUCATION UNDER ATTACK 2014part of an attempt to discourage them from trying toregister an independent National Teachers’Association (NTA). Previously, the government hadseized the assets of the former Ethiopian Teachers’Association and given the name to a governmentappointedentity. As of the end of 2012, NTA membershad not received notification of any decision by theCharities and Societies Agency on whether they wouldbe permitted to register the NTA. 712There were reports of teachers who were fired,arrested or otherwise harassed by security officialsbecause they refused to become EPRDF members,were outspoken about political activities, or refused tomonitor the activities of their students for securityofficials. 713In 2011, during the implementation of the GambellaRegion’s ‘villagization’ programme, students wereforced to go to neighbouring villages and build tukuls(huts) for the new villagers. Students who refusedwere not permitted to sit their year-end examinations.Teachers who refused to organize students for thisactivity were suspended or arrested. 714Military use of schoolsDuring the Ethiopian military’s response to an attackby unknown gunmen on a commercial farm in theGambella region in April 2012, soldiers used a schoolin Chobo-Mender as a prison. 715Attacks on higher educationThe Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization,in its April 2009 Universal Periodic Review submissionon Ethiopia, alleged that more than 80 Oromostudents from Bahir Dar University were arrested andothers were beaten in March 2009 during peacefulprotests. 716 The Human Rights League of the Horn ofAfrica (HRLHA) 717 reported that a law student at AddisAbaba University, who had been active in the Union ofOromo Students, was arrested without a court warrantin front of the main campus by security agents in July2009. 718 Amnesty International reported arrests ofstudents accused of supporting the OLF at the universitiesof Jimma, Haromaya and Nekemte in April2011. 719 Human Rights Watch documented arbitraryarrests, torture and ill-treatment of a number of Oromostudents at Addis Ababa’s Federal Police CrimeInvestigation Sector, a detention centre also known asMaekelawi, between 2011 and 2013. 720Throughout Ethiopia, students were detained bysecurity officials for organizing student associations,being politically outspoken or organizing culturalmovements. The monitoring of students was one ofthe key methods through which rural Ethiopians,particularly Oromos, were targeted because ofinvolvement in lawful political movements. There wereanecdotal reports of Oromo students being releasedfrom detention and not being allowed to completetheir schooling. 721In January 2010, Oromia police shot two unarmedstudents, one fatally, during a disturbance at ArdaytaCollege; one policeman was found guilty of murderand imprisoned. 722In June 2012, according to the HRLHA, security forcesstormed dormitories and arrested engineeringstudents at Haromaya University in Oromia to break upa demonstration; they were held outside without foodfor two days. 723Attacks on education in 2013Arrests of university students continued in 2013, withat least three incidents reported. 724 Security agentsreportedly arrested and detained some 100 AddisAbaba University students, a majority of whom wereOromo, after a violent clash erupted between twogroups of students on the Arat Kilo University Campus(College of Natural Science) on 2 January. 725 It wasreported that a number of these students were injuredand several had to be hospitalized. 726 The clash wassaid to have been triggered when Tigrean students putup posters with insulting messages about Oromostudents. 727 Police reportedly surrounded the campusand detained at least 100 more students of ArbaMinch University in May who were said to have beenresponsible for organizing a protest over educationrelatedgrievances. 728 One Addis Ababa Universitystudent was also arrested on campus in March afterexpressing concern via Facebook about allegedcorruption among Arba Minch University officials andcity administrators; he was subsequently charged withcriminal defamation. 729137