(Bilisummaa, 29 October 2011) TPLF’s government has a plan for another round of mass arrests; the Ministry of Justice has established a team whose mission is to investigate and find out the possible individuals in Ethiopian Criminal Justice Organs.
Qeerroo news revealed that the EPRDF ruling party government has a plan for another round of mass arrests that mainly target Oromos, political dissidents, members and supporters of opposition political parties.
According to Qeerroo news sources the plan is only the smaller components of the bigger plan that has been implanted by TPLF’s government since July 2011 to systematically wipe out critical political dissidents in Ethiopia.
According to recent Media reports more than 200 individuals were arrested and charged under Ethiopian Anti Terrorism Proclamation, a piece of legislation that has been aggressively used by the TPLF government essentially to crack down on Oromos, political dissidents and other professionals critical of the current regime.
The victims of these arbitrarily arrests includes prominent artists, politicians, and veteran international and local journalists. This new information noticeably substantiates one of the promises Meles Zenaw made to his parliament recently.
During his latest parliamentary address Meles announces that there are several people on whom his government is collecting an evidence to make another round of arrest. He said “There are people we know they are involved and have a connection with terrorist groups. We just need some more evidence before we make arrests. However, we don’t want to ruin everything by moving too fast”.
This new plan of arrests may also spank some of the government employees and civil servants whom the TPLF sees as “potential threats” and “insider information sources” of individuals and Media who are critical of regime.
Belay Olana, who is an expert on TPLF’s Policy on civil service reform, commented that “given the very nature of TPLF and its policy of civil servants and government employees, this news should not be surprising for anyone”. He said “the government has been doing all in its hand to purge independent and competent civil servants and appointees, whom it thinks as non supporters of TPLF’s policies and marked political dissidents, from its institutions using different mechanisms”. He further commented “The ruling party calls this category of government employees as ‘Trojan Horse’ infiltrated the government bureaucracy to speed up the fall of the regime.” This expert added that “therefore, if government uses its anti-terrorism campaign to purge and prosecute its employees…it is just another means to terrorize and repress its own citizens inside its own apparatus”
In related news TPLF’s Ministry of Justice has established a team whose mission is “to investigate and find out the possible individuals in Ethiopian Criminal Justice Organs” who have been providing information for news media that are reporting on prevalent abuse of power and inhuman handling of political detainees in that county.
Qeerroo sources inside in the Ministry further indicated that this newly organized team targets the Oromo and Amhara legal experts and professionals who, in the eyes TPLF, are disloyal to regime’s policy of discrimination and repression.
The main objective of this team is to hound and purge the independent prosecutors who are not willing to cooperate and work with Tigreans in repressing and prosecuting innocent citizens.
According to these sources, this team has already contacted and interrogated some of targeted experts as to whether they provided information for news media.
Qeerroo sources added that, Mr. Kifley Mehari, a veteran member of TPLF and a member of this team directly threatened some of these experts by saying that “some of these journalists are persons for whom our government is seriously looking for. If you give any information or documents to these people we will find out and then you will be the one who pay the ultimate price for their acts of terrorism and treason”.
This information further revealed that the establishment of this team might be a reaction of the Ministry of Justice to the critical information recently seeps out and subsequently published by several news media. This information was related to members of TPLF who have been playing leading roles in persecuting and torturing Oromos and other political dissidents in criminal justice institutions, especially in Federal Police Investigation Centers.
According to Qeerroo sources these acts of harassment, threats and persecution of non-Tigreans prosecutors and judges have been the prolong practices of Ethiopian Government since 2005 national election crisis. It is remembered that Mr. Leggese Alemu, who was an Oromo Prosecutor and Director in Ministry of Justice, was under similar threats, harassments and persecution because of his imputed political opinions and ethnic background before he fled to America in July 2011.