Wednesday, April 11, 2007
ADDIS ABABA - Suspected terrorism suspects held in Ethiopia are being treated well, the country’s official media reported.
State-run Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) quoted some of the prisoners as saying that the government had provided them with basic needs and medical attention since they were brought to the country.
"Suspected international terrorists who are under custody in Ethiopia said they have not been subjected to torture or any form of violation of human rights," ENA said in its website, where it published a picture of eight of the detainees, some of them dressed in track suits and smiling.
The claims came two days after Ethiopian government said it was holding 41 terrorism suspects of 17 nationalities arrested in Somalia, whose transitional Addis Ababa-backed government is battling Islamist insurgents and clan militia, some suspected of links to terror groups.
"I do appreciate everything. The treatment here is very good. Ethiopians are very sociable and they respect human rights," ENA quoted Muhibitabo Clement Ibrahim, a Rwandan suspect, as saying.
The suspects had appeared before Ethiopia’s military court which had ruled that 29 were to be released because they played "only a marginal role".
Five, from Tanzania, Sudan, Denmark, the United Arab Emirates and from Sweden, had already been let go.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has accused Ethiopia of running a covert program detaining foreign Islamists, with support from Kenya, the United States and Somalia’s transitional government.
In a March 30 statement, the rights panel detailed "arbitrary detention, expulsion and apparent enforced disappearance of dozens of individuals who fled the fighting" between Ethiopia-backed Somali troops and the powerful Islamist movement from December through January 2007.
Source: AFP, April 11, 2007