{"id":10051,"date":"2016-02-22T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=10051"},"modified":"2016-02-22T08:00:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T13:00:13","slug":"ethiopia-debunks-human-rights-watch-report-of-continued-violence-in-oromia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/10051","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia Debunks Human Rights Watch Report of Continued Violence in Oromia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intervew_getachew_reda1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-9963 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intervew_getachew_reda1-300x155.jpg\" alt=\"intervew_getachew_reda1\" width=\"300\" height=\"155\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intervew_getachew_reda1-300x155.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intervew_getachew_reda1-220x114.jpg 220w, http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intervew_getachew_reda1.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Ethiopia on Monday debunked a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that student protests against a government plan to extend the capital Addis Ababa into Oromia, the largest region in the country, has continued.<\/p>\n<p>Communications Minister Getachew Reda <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/live\/world-africa-35518166\">dismissed claims<\/a> that the government is violently suppressing the protests which began in November 2015.<\/p>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2016\/02\/21\/ethiopia-no-let-crackdown-protests\">HRW report<\/a> published on Sunday, Ethiopian security forces have continued to violently crack-down on protesters. The report dismissed claims that the protests against the \u201cAddis Ababa Integrated Development Master Plan \u201cstopped after the controversial plan was cancelled.<\/p>\n<p>The international rights group said although <a href=\"Report\">the Master Plan was cancelled in January<\/a>, thousands have been killed and arrested arbitrarily without charge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFlooding Oromia with federal security forces shows the authorities\u2019 broad disregard for peaceful protest by students, farmers and other dissenters,\u201d said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n<p>However, during a BBC interview, Getachew described HRW reports as \u201can absolute lie.\u201d He questioned the authenticity of the reports since HWR is not present in Ethiopia. However, HRW have an outpost in Kenya\u2019s capital Nairobi.<\/p>\n<p>Getachew said that \u201cfrom half way across the world\u201d HWR have been \u201cchurning out report after report \u201con Ethiopia.<\/p>\n<p>Although he described HRW\u2019s report as a \u201cstroke of magic,\u201d Getachew acknowledged that the region was still unsettled. But said rather than a continued student protest, the government is faced with attacks targeting public buildings.<\/p>\n<p>Getachew said armed groups \u201ctrying to stir up the emotions in the public\u201d were responsible for the attacks. Despite the revelation, the minister did not identify the name of the armed group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ethiopia on Monday debunked a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that student protests against a government plan to extend the capital Addis Ababa into Oromia, the largest region in the country, has continued. Communications Minister Getachew Reda dismissed claims that<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span> <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/10051\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,2860,1],"tags":[149,4555,4967,4628,4677,2700,4676],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10051"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10052,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10051\/revisions\/10052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}