Ethiopia: Political
Detainees Tortured
Police Abuse Journalists,
Opponents to Extract Confessions
OCTOBER 18, 2013
When we live in a ‘democracy’, we expect certain standards
to be upheld; a free and unbiased press, fair representation of the people and
political unrestricted speech. The Ethiopian government has violated this basic
trust that the citizens place in them.
The Ethiopian government has been accused of detaining a
countless number of opposition politicians, journalists, human rights activists
and protesters. They have been imprisoned in inhumane conditions; denied their
basic rights, starved and sometimes even tortured. This abuse is being
perpetrated in order for the government to coerce confessions and compel
confessions from the journalists while they are under duress. This method is
being used to suppress the ability of the press to report the truth behind the government
as well as eliminating any political opposition to their power.
When the press is inhibited and opposition political parties
are suppressed, we as the people are no longer represented by government officials,
which can result in serious abuses of power (as seen by the situation in Ethiopia
currently). In George Orwell’s fantastic and thought provoking novel “Nineteen
Eighty-Four”, the government uses the press to control the population ensuring
complete subjugation and allowing them to commit any crime with impunity which frighteningly
reminds me of what is happening in Ethiopia. Sir Francis Bacon once said “knowledge
is power”, and when citizens are kept ignorant and in perpetual fear of the government,
they are left entirely impotent. What truly strikes me about this outrageous
story is that the Ethiopian government is acting with absolute impunity. There appear
to be no repercussions for their actions and the torture of what appears to be
hundreds of individuals appears to be going on without any end in sight. The
world as a whole must stand up and take action immediately lest other tyrannies
under the guise of ‘democracies’ perpetuate the same acts of physical violence
and psychological intimidation on their own people.
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