Ethiopia drops post-election demo ban

ADDIS ABABA, July 14 (AFP) — Ethiopia on Thursday dropped a ban on post-election demonstrations in Addis Ababa imposed after disputed May polls and renewed following clashes in the capital as a rights group said the death toll from the violence stood at 40.

Coalition for Unity and Democracy supporters give the party’s victory sign and wave Ethiopian flags, Sunday, May 8, 2005 during an election rally in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. (AP).

“There is no necessity now to lengthen the duration of the ban,” Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s office said in a statement read over national radio, adding that the ban would expire without renewal on Friday.

However, it stressed that municipal officials held the authority to reject or approve applications for public demonstrations in line with existing law.

Information Minister Berekat Simon said earlier Thursday the ban was not needed anymore as the situation in the capital, which was rocked by deadly confrontations between police and crowds during election protests in early June, had improved.

“As things are calming down and the tension and uncertainty is dying, there is no need to renew the ban any further,” he told AFP.

Meles banned all public demonstrations in Addis Ababa and its environs for one month immediately after polls closed on May 15 and then extended it for another month on June 13 after violence erupted in the capital as protestors defied the order to complain about alleged massive vote fraud.

According to hospital officials, at least 36 people were killed when police opened fire on crowds in the capital during protests on June 8 and one person was killed on June 6, the day students began to demonstrate.

The government has confirmed only 30 deaths.

But Ethiopia’s largest human rights group said Thursday that a probe by its investigators had found that at least 40 people were killed, 74 others shot and wounded by police with another 17 missing and still unaccounted for.

“Based on our investigations we believe there could be more casualties, but these were the only ones we could definitely confirm,” said Adam Melaku, executive secretary of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO).

In addition to the deaths in Addis Ababa, the government has confirmed that police shot and killed a newly elected opposition lawmaker in southern Ethiopia on June 12. Authorities have said six police officers have been arrested in connection with the murder.

The violence prompted a massive police crackdown around the country in which thousands of people were detained, many of whom have now been released as the national election board probes complaints of ballot irregularities and after a truce was agreed between the government and opposition groups.

Amid the fraud investigations, the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), which delayed its planned June 8 certification of final results for a month due to the volume of complaints, announced official returns from just over half of the constituencies contested in the polls.

Those results do not give either the government or opposition a definitive majority in parliament but show Meles’ ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) with a slight edge in the legislature.

Complete final returns are not expected for several weeks pending completion of fraud probes but the partial results appear similar to the preliminary counts that sparked the violence last month.

Results from 307 of the 524 contested districts gave 159 seats in the legislature to the EPRDF, its allies and parties close to it, according to the NEBE.

The country’s two main opposition groups, small non-aligned parties and one independent candidate took a total of 148 seats, according to the results.

The other 23 constituencies that make up the 547-seat parliament are to be contested in August in remote Eastern Somali state where polls were not held in May for logisitical reasons.