{"id":21921,"date":"2015-12-17T00:53:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T00:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ethiopia-amnesty-warns-against-brutal-crackdown\/"},"modified":"2015-12-17T00:53:24","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T00:53:24","slug":"ethiopia-amnesty-warns-against-brutal-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ethiopia-amnesty-warns-against-brutal-crackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia: Amnesty warns against &#8216;brutal crackdown&#8217; on protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Anti-terror rhetoric by Ethiopia&#8217;s government could escalate into a brutal crackdown on protesters, human rights group Amnesty International has warned.}<\/p>\n<p>A plan to expand the capital&#8217;s administrative control into the Oromia region has sparked deadly protests.<\/p>\n<p>The government has accused Oromo protestors of links with terrorist groups and trying to topple the state.<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty says the claims aim to justify repression of those protesting against feared land seizures.<\/p>\n<p>The Oromo make up Ethiopia&#8217;s biggest ethnic group, at about 27 million people.<\/p>\n<p>Oromia is the country&#8217;s largest region, surrounding the capital Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say five people have died in protests so far, but opposition parties and human rights groups say the number is closer to 40.<\/p>\n<p>Protesters also say they fear cultural persecution if what has been dubbed a &#8220;master plan&#8221; to integrate parts of Oromia into Addis Ababa go ahead.<br \/>\n&#8216;Chilling&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Some have also raised the prospect that they will be forcibly evicted and their land taken amid the rapid expansion of the capital.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The suggestion that these Oromo &#8211; protesting against a real threat to their livelihoods &#8211; are aligned to terrorists will have a chilling effect on freedom of expression for rights activists,&#8221; said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty&#8217;s Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.<\/p>\n<p>In April last year the same plan sparked months of student protests.<\/p>\n<p>The government said at the time that 17 people had died in the violence, but human rights groups said that the number was much higher.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-9906 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_87250105_oromo.jpg\" alt=\"Many Oromo people flee Ethiopia to take refuge in neighbouring states \" \/><\/figure>\n<p>SOURCE:BBC:[Ethiopia: Amnesty warns against &#8216;brutal crackdown&#8217; on protesters->http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-35117713]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Anti-terror rhetoric by Ethiopia&#8217;s government could escalate into a brutal crackdown on protesters, human rights group Amnesty International has warned.} A plan to expand the capital&#8217;s administrative control into the Oromia region has sparked deadly protests. The government has accused Oromo protestors of links with terrorist groups and trying to topple the state. Amnesty says [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000070905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-21921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":{"id":2000070905,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21921.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21921.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21921.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21921.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21921.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21921.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000070905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21921"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=21921"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=21921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}