Centre for Applied Human Rights
Tewodros Yalew
Ethiopia, CAHR, Spring 2015
My career as a human rights defender started in 2011 when I was approached by one of the founders of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, now known as Human Rights Council, to serve the organization and help their effort in putting it back on its feet after the huge blow it took in 2009 with the introduction of the 2009 civil societies proclamation. By then I was teaching at a private college after resigning from a judicial training I participated as a candidate first instance court judge. The reason for my resignation was the abusive politicization of the judiciary in the name of reform and the undue interference of the executive or politicians in the governance of the institution.
I first joined the Human Rights Council or HRCO as a volunteer in the post of Advocacy and Legal Aid Officer in August 2011 but was then employed after six months. Because of the proclamation I mentioned earlier, HRCO, the once massive and highly acclaimed human rights monitoring organization, was highly devastated. It lost 80% of its highly experienced employees and closed down nine out of its 12 branches. Many of its employees simply left the organization and some were forced to flee because of prosecutions.
In my post as an Advocacy and Legal Aid officer, I made efforts to revive the organization's public presence by issuing up to date media releases and thematic human rights situation reports. In most cases this meant preparing press statements such as urgent appeals and press releases upon human rights violations committed on journalists and political activists and ordinary citizens. And especially at that time there were many of these cases since the government was putting into practice the repressive legislations it passed around 2009. We also made thematic reports called special reports that covered a particular human rights concern, such as evictions and freedom of association. As part of our advocacy I also prepared our organization’s stakeholder report for the 19th session of the UPR on Ethiopia at the UN Human Rights Council and worked with other international organizations on joint stakeholder reports. My job also included providing legal aid assistance to victims of human rights violations in the form of writing pleadings, petitions and counseling.
Human rights defenders and activists are crucial in keeping a momentum of civic engagement and avoiding extremist measures of desperation from the suppressed populace.
Our effort to revive the organization was full of hurdles and the continued help from the international human rights community was pivotal. For example my first assignment as a volunteer was to assist in a public fund raising event. As I tried to apply for a permit at the Civil Societies Agency for four consecutive fund raising events I was met with scornful resistance and they only approved one of them. Given that the law has prohibited human rights organizations from raising funds from abroad such a hurdle upon local fund raising reveals the deep-seated opposition by the government towards civil society organizations, especially those working on human rights. As my last project before I left for my MA studies, I was able, along with my colleagues, to make HRCO a beneficiary of the Civil Society fund of the EU, which has enabled HRCO to open new branches and add more staff to the core departments it was once forced to close down.
Currently the government has continued its harassment and intimidation of activists of all kinds. One can mention the fleeing of twenty journalists because of the government's declaration of its intention to level criminal charges, the imprisonment of six bloggers for utterly fabricated charges of terrorism in April 2014, and the imprisonment of many other political activists. Ethiopia continues to be a closed police state with a fast disappearance of spaces for peaceful civic and political activism and with it a fast growth of armed groups of every kind from liberation fronts to movements. Human rights defenders and activists are crucial at this stage in keeping a momentum of civic engagement and avoiding extremist measures of desperation from the suppressed populace, though their efforts continue to be met with atrocious reprisal from the government.
I am currently a fellow at the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York and I find the organization and the people to be the best place for human rights defenders to further their work both academically and practically. The Centre has given me access to the rich resources of the university and a wide opportunity for networking and advocacy and support from experienced academics and practitioners.