Overview
The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) was established in October 1991 by 32 Founding Members from academia, business and the professions. It is an independent and non-partisan non- governmental organization. Its principal objectives are the promotion of the democratic process, the rule of law and due process, respect for human rights. Apart from struggling for the objectives outlined above, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council fights against ethnic or any other type of prejudice and animosity, religious intolerance, violence and armed struggle. EHRCO is totally committed to peaceful struggle against any type of dictatorship which is a violation of the fundamental civil rights of the people. It is also committed to rule of law, and stands against rule of persons whatever their rationale for the monopoly power may be. So far the Ethiopian Human Rights Council is the only organization that monitors and reports human rights violations by the functionaries of the regime in power. It has produced seven reports and a 170- page book entitled: DEMOCRACY, RULE OF LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN ETHIOPIA: RHETORIC AND PRACTICE in April 1995. The eighth report of the Council will be out soon. These reports and the book detail all kinds of human rights violations, from extrajudicial killing to torture, involuntary disappearances, illegal detention and gagging the private press, to harassment of political opponents. Ethiopia is still a country where extrajudicial killings are common. Torture by tightly tying the arms with electric wire has incapacitated the arms of many young people, including women. Involuntary disappearances are a regular phenomenon. Harassment of the private press, inordinate fines and imprisonment that Ethiopian journalists suffer, on one hand, and the harassment of newspaper vendors, now especially outside Addis Ababa, and the harassment of even the readers of the private press, on the other, have made journalism the most dangerous profession next to political opposition groups. Illegal detention, that is detention without any court order, is in the thousands and many have remained in prison without a day in court for months or even years. There are also tens of thousands of persons who have been dismissed from their jobs against the civil service laws, many even without their right of pension.