[1] Reports of human rights violations within the country have been levied at the federal government of Ethiopia, and by various militant groups and regional militias; including the Tigray People's Liberation Front.
[2] After overthrowing Selassie in 1974, Major Mengistu Haile Marium established a military dictatorship that subjected its political opponents to "arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial execution.
[8] In 1976, the Derg instigated the Qey Shibir (Ethiopian Red Terror), a violent political repression campaign targeting the EPRP.
[8] The Qey Shibir and the 1983-1985 famine, an event partly created and exacerbated by the government's military policies, increased popular support for the EPRDF, which successfully overthrew Mengistu's regime in 1991.
[8][10] The EPRDF took power in 1991 with the promise of a transitional program that would rehabilitate those negatively impacted by the previous regime, promote democracy, and recognize and protect human and minority group rights.
Article 17 of the Charter stated that the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) would work to de-escalate ethnic conflict as it led the country toward a full democracy.
In 2018, his government freed thousands of political prisoners, lifted the state of emergency, ended the Eritrean–Ethiopian War, selected a new cabinet among which half the ministers were women, and appointed a woman judge, Birtukan Mideksa, as the head of the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE).
The sheer numbers involved in this wave of arrests represents the most far-reaching crackdown on freedom of expression seen in many years in Ethiopia.
[20] From March 2011 to December 2011 at least 108 opposition party members and six journalists were arrested in Ethiopia for alleged involvement with various proscribed terrorist groups.
[21] The trials have become deeply politicized owing to the interest of senior government officials including the Prime Minister who declared in the national parliament that all the defendants are guilty.
[23] The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) consolidated political control with 99.6 percent victory in the May 2010 parliamentary elections.
[25][26] Freedom House stated in 2007 that citizens had little access to media other than the state-owned networks, and most private newspapers struggled to remain open and suffered periodic harassment from the government.
[27] Government censorship, harassment and arrest of bloggers and journalists severely restricts freedom of the press in Ethiopia: All of the above individuals were held at the Kaliti Prison.
The longest detention prior to bail among those listed was that of Kenyan freelance journalist Yassin Juma, who was detained for 49 days, accused of "inciting ethnic violence and plotting to kill senior Ethiopian officials".
[51] According to the 2005 Ethiopian Demographic Health Survey, more than 74% of women between the ages of 15 and 49 have undergone some form of genital mutilation and cutting with more than 97% in the Somali Region.
[52] Among certain Omotic Karo and Hamar communities in southern Ethiopia, adults and children with physical abnormalities are considered to be mingi, "ritually impure".
[55] A nationwide series of violent protests, concentrated in the Oromia Region, broke out starting on 23 October 2019, sparked by activist and media owner Jawar Mohammed's allegation that security forces had attempted to detain him.
[56] On 29 May 2020, Amnesty International released a report accusing the security forces of Ethiopia of mass detentions and extrajudicial killings.
The report stated that in 2019, at least 25 people, suspected of supporting the Oromo Liberation Army, were killed by the forces in parts of the Oromia Region.
Its richly fertile soil has attracted foreign and domestic investors who have leased large tracts of land at favorable prices.
[63] In 2013, the Oakland Institute released a report accusing the Ethiopian government of forcing the relocation of "hundreds of thousands of indigenous people from their lands" in the Gambela Region.
[64] According to several reports by the organization, those who refused were the subject of a variety of intimidation techniques including physical and sexual abuse, which sometimes led to deaths.
[65][66][67] The Ethiopian government has denied the accusations of land grabbing and instead pointed to the positive trajectory of the country's economy as evidence of the development program's benefits.
Homosexuality came to light in the country after the failed 2008 appeal to the Council of Ministers, and the LGBT scene began to thrive slightly in major metropolitan locations, such as Addis Ababa.
The violation also existed during the EPRDF era; in the protest of the 2005 general election, 193 people were killed by police forces initiated by government crackdown.
[77] According to a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in June 2008, the Ethiopian army has committed widespread executions, torture and rape in Ogaden, as part of a counterinsurgency campaign.
[78] The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded with a big press release stating that they performed an investigation during August and September of that year, which "found no trace of serious human rights violation let alone war crimes or crimes against humanity" during their response to the Abole oil field raid, but claimed the investigation found "a mass of evidence of further systematic abuses committed by the ONLF.
[81] In the Finote Selam Prison the reports indicated the detainees were beaten and tortured, and the Amahara and Oromo ethnicities were given worse treatment than other groups.
[81] In 2018, under the new leadership of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian Government closed Jail Ogaden in the Somali Region of Ethiopia.
[84] A Human Rights Watch report indicates that the prisoners were malnourished, beaten, and kept in small confines that promoted rampant disease spread.