“Such a Brutal Crackdown”

The Ethiopia Human Rights Commission, the national human rights commission that is
heavily government influenced, has reportedly been investigating and should be
submitting a report to parliament soon. 137 There were widespread concerns over the
Commission’s lack of independence. Human Rights Watch has documented several
incidents where individuals who filed a complaint with the commission were told “they
were anti-development,” or that displacement from development, religious issues, and
freedom of the press were beyond the commission’s mandate. The commission carried out
no known investigation into the 2014 protests.
Human Rights Watch wrote to the government of Ethiopia regarding the findings in this
report (see Annex 2) but had not received a response as of this writing.
137 Star Africa, “Ethiopia’s human right commission to present report on recent violations,” March 19, 2016,
http://en.starafrica.com/news/ethiopias-human-right-commission-to-present-report-on-recent-violations.html (accessed
May 19, 2016).
57 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | JUNE 2016