Ethiopian police 'tortured Christians'

An Orthodox church internal dispute turned nasty

By Damian Zane BBC correspondent in Addis Ababa

Ethiopia's federal police have been accused of illegally detaining hundreds of people following a religious demonstration three weeks ago.

The accusation is contained within a human rights report just released.

The report also alleges that the detainees were subject to torture during their five-day detention.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Council says that following a confrontation between the police and demonstrators outside Addis Ababa's Lideta Mariam Orthodox church, 700 people were taken to a police training camp 30km outside the city.

Police silence

The report says that the detainees were neither charged nor allowed contact with a lawyer or a family member.

Detainees say they were tortured

According to the Ethiopian constitution anyone arrested must be appear in court within 48 hours but most of the 700 prisoners were detained way beyond this deadline.

The federal police have so far not responded to the allegations, though I have been trying to contact them over the past two days.

The report also alleges that some of those arrested were tortured.

Torture

The police told people to take their shoes off and made them run up and down on a stony road.

Some were also told to walk on the road on their knees.

Fully clothed, they were then doused in cold water.

One of the human rights council's investigators showed me pictures of some of the detainees with their knees badly bruised from their ordeal.

At the time of the arrests the police said some of their officers were attacked during the demonstration.

Seven of them were injured, one of them so badly that he was in hospital.

The demonstration three weeks ago was about the Lideta Mariam community resisting the imposition of a church administrator appointed by the office of the Patriarch the head of the orthodox church in Ethiopia.

The dispute between Lideta Mariam and the Patriarch's office has been going on for more than two years and the secular court has decided that Lideta Mariam must accept the appointees.