In February, plainclothes security officials apprehended Batte Urgessa, the spokesperson for the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), an opposition political group, and French journalist Antoine Galindo during an interview in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
More than twenty-four hours later, they were brought before the Addis Ababa City Administration Court. The judge granted the police’s request to keep them until March 1 to conduct an investigation.
Following a worldwide outcry, Galindo was released from a police station in Addis Ababa’s Bole sub-city, where the two were reportedly detained. He departed Ethiopia on February 29.
Batte appeared in court on March 1, and the prosecutor stated that he was being investigated for links to the banned Oromo Liberation Army. He was returned to jail until March 6.
This is not Batte’s first time in jail. He was wrongfully detained in March 2021 and kept for a year. The authorities continuously transported him between detention centres, refused him access to relatives and legal counsel, and he was eventually released after having major health problems that apparently continue to this day. Seven other OLF political leaders jailed in the months leading up to Batte’s 2021 incarceration remain in prison, despite several court rulings for their release.
Five other politicians have also been imprisoned recently, including Christian Tadele, a member of parliament who has criticised the government’s policies in the Amhara region, and Dessalegn Chanie, another vocal Amhara opposition lawmaker.
Galindo’s detention, the first long-term detention of a foreign correspondent in four years, comes amid an increase in journalist harassment, which has gotten little international notice.
Ethiopia’s federal parliament prolonged the state of emergency in the Amhara region, which had been in effect since August and gave the government broad authority. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, four of the eight journalists in detention as of early 2024 were detained using emergency powers.
These latest arrests show that no one in Ethiopia is safe from arbitrary arrest and incarceration. Ethiopia’s long-standing partners should denounce the recent spate of illegal detentions and question the government’s rising intolerance of nonviolent protest.
