Paris-Geneva, July 19, 2024 - The
recent forced dissolution of numerous civil society organisations
highlights an intensification in the restriction of civic space in
Ethiopia, and constitutes a major violation of the rights to freedom
of association and expression, which has harmful consequences on
civil society as a whole. The Observatory for the Protection of Human
Rights Defenders (FIDH-OMCT) urges the Ethiopian authorities to put
an immediate end to this escalating crackdown on civic space and
independent domestic human rights organisations.
In recent weeks the Ethiopian Authority for Civil Society
Organizations (ACSO) has reportedly shut down at least 1,504 Civil
Society Organisations (CSOs) for failing to submit their annual
reports. The ACSO, which is responsible for overseeing and ensuring
the compliance of CSOs with the law, enacted these dissolutions under
the revised Civil Society Organizations Proclamation of 2011. This
law mandates that CSOs submit an annual report detailing their main
activities within three months of the fiscal year’s end. Failure to
comply with this requirement results in a public summons by the
authority, and the subsequent dissolution of the organisation.
The
CSOs have been struggling to comply with the obligations of the ASCOs
to produce these reports. These difficulties are closely tied to
their underfunding, as they do not have the material capacities to
fulfil the heavy administrative requirements imposed on them, which
is adding to their struggle to manage and fund their activities.
These
systematic closures severely impact civil society, creating a climate
of fear, isolation, and stigmatisation among the affected CSOs as
well as other civil society actors in Ethiopia. This radical measure
is effectively silencing civil society organisations and actors, and
appears to be a punitive response for their legitimate activities.
This
unprecedented crackdown is part of an ongoing general repression
against civic space and human rights defenders. In recent months,
prominent human rights organisations in the country have been
subjected to an increase of acts of intimidation, harassment, and
threats by the authorities, including the ACSO, and several human
rights defenders and journalists have been arbitrarily detained. A
report
from the Ethiopian Press Freedom Defenders, a collective of Ethiopian
media professionals, found that around 200 journalists have been
arrested by the Ethiopian government since 2019. The arbitrary
closure of CSOs is yet another attempt to suppress civil society, as
it seems the authorities use this measure as a tool going alongside
with other forms of harassment in retaliation for their work. Over
the past years several human rights defenders including journalists,
academics, CSOs leaders have been forced to live in exile fearing
reprisals.
The
Observatory urges the Ethiopian authorities to abide by their human
rights obligations under the Ethiopian Constitution, the African
Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights to respect, protect, promote, and
fulfil the rights to freedom of expression, association, and freedom
of peaceful assembly. The Observatory calls on the Ethiopian
authorities to immediately overturn the decisions to close down the
CSOs and to allow them to continue their legitimate activities
without fear of reprisal.
The
Observatory further calls on Ethiopia’s international and regional
partners to engage
in direct diplomatic communication with the Ethiopian authorities,
through international advocacy or the potential imposition of
targeted sanctions, to encourage them to repeal the closure decisions
and protect civil society and human rights defenders.
The
Observatory also recommends to Ethiopia’s international and
regional partners to increase the scrutiny on this escalating
situation, by denouncing publicly the repression facing civil society
and human rights defenders in Ethiopia, and by cooperating with CSOs
to document human rights violation, while providing financial and
technical assistance to support their activities, essentials for all.
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