Interview: Years of untold suffering at Ogaden Prison

Why did you focus on Jail Ogaden?

We have been studying human rights issues in the Somali region of Ethiopia for a long time. We published a report in 2008 showing how soldiers from the Somali region of Ethiopia have displaced thousands of people and destroyed their homes. Many were detained and tortured, and even executed. Those who suffered were perceived as sympathizers of the National Liberation Front of Ogaden (ONLF), an armed opposition group in the region.

We continued to receive similar reports of brutality, this time by Liyu police, a brutal paramilitary force reporting to the president of the Somali region. We focused on Jail Ogaden because it is the main detention center where people suspected of supporting the ONLF – including those accused of giving them food, information or shelter – are detained. Formal accusations are rarely made against them. While torture is prevalent throughout the country, the magnitude of the abuse that each person has described in Ogaden Prison warrants further research.

4 July 2018 Report

"We Are Like the Dead"

Torture and Other Abuses in Ogaden Prison, Somali Regional State, Ethiopia

Ethiopia does not allow rights groups or the press to investigate allegations against the government. How did you collect and verify this information?

We undertook to interview the people directly affected. We spoke to former prisoners, prison guards and former government officials involved in these arrests. Some were interviewed in Ethiopia, but most of the victims we interviewed live now outside the country. We interviewed people living in exile in about 10 countries around the world. They left because you are never really free once you are perceived as a supporter of the ONLF. You are constantly in danger of arrest or persecution.

Somali President Abdi Mohamed Omar, commonly known as Abdi Illey, controls everything in the Somali region, but his intolerance for dissent extends well beyond the region. In the past, there have been protests against him in Kenya, the United States, Australia and Europe. Relatives of some of the protesters were hunted down in Ethiopia and harbaded, arrested and beaten for silencing their family members outside of Ethiopia. Others have had family members targeted because of their posts on social media. It was therefore more difficult than I thought that someone could talk about the suffering endured. The fear of expressing oneself is real and understandable.

Some cases of torture and abuse were perpetrated in front of the prison population, which provided opportunities to corroborate many of the abuses that the prisoners told us about.

Most victims fear for their lives.

We spoke to former government officials, including former Liyu police officers, who had left the country. Some officials who are still working for the government have spoken to us officially while they remain in Ethiopia. I understand that they took a lot of risks to do it. From their conversations with them, I feel that they understand that the widespread mistreatment at Jail Ogaden was bad, but many feel helpless to do anything about it as long as Abdi Illey is in control.

One of the most powerful proofs we had was the self-evaluation of Jail Ogaden prison officials. This particular evaluation was videotaped in 2011 because Somali region president Abdi Illey was at the time abroad and wanted to see him. The evaluation lasted 11 days and the images last 25 hours.

On the video, we saw several guards confessing to torture and rape prisoners.

We had the video of the filmmaker who fled the country and now lives in Sweden.

Have you ever wanted to give up this job? What held you in suspense?

The Somali region is the most secretive of Ethiopia and does not receive much attention locally or internationally. Many of the most egregious abuses in Ethiopia occur there, and there is little understanding of what is going on there, even among other Ethiopians.

When we decided to work on this, we knew that it would be difficult to obtain information. Once you sit down and hear people tell their stories, you hear how they feel the international community has just abandoned them. We hope this report will draw more attention to their problems.

More personally, I became a father last year. One of the things that came up during the interviews was the way women gave birth to Ogaden Prison. They said that they had no access to medical help and that many would die during childbirth. Many of these children grow up in the horrible conditions of the prison. When the work was difficult to continue, I think about my son and how his life would be different if he was born in Ogaden prison like so many others.

Could you tell me more about who you talked to?

We spoke to 70 people who are former detainees at Ogaden Prison. I remember a young man in his twenties who told me about his experience at the jail. He had left his small village of Deghabhur, the heart of the conflict zone, to go to Jijiga to continue his studies. He stayed with his aunt. One night, while he was coming home from school, he was arrested by Liyu police. They took him to Ogaden Prison where he spent two years. He was beaten and placed in solitary confinement for six months. He did not see anyone except the people who came to beat him.

He was accused of supporting the ONLF, a group he knew nothing about. They continued to beat him and ask him if he had delivered food and money to the ONLF. Since he did not give them satisfactory answers, they continued to beat him. Sometimes they tied her hands and feet behind her back and exposed her to the sun for hours. He was often taken to the Jijiga Water Reservoir, out of the city, and plunged into the water until he was about to get out of the water. smother and then fall back. They did it several times. When he was detained in solitary confinement, the room had a high roof but narrow walls, so that he could not lie down his body and lie down, instead he stood in an uncomfortable position, even when he needed to sleep

Upon his release, this young man fled to Europe where he is currently studying a finance course. His body is covered with torture marks and he wonders why he was subjected to such treatment.

The Somali government says it is a development center brimming with investment opportunities. The marks on his body are a daily reminder of his different reality.

There is so much repression in Ethiopia. Watch the protests of the Oromo in recent years. But there is now hope because the new prime minister is considered progressive. How should the new administration handle this issue?

Paramilitary police Liyu, implicated in the torture of Jail Ogaden, reportedly attacked villages in the Oromia region in 2016. At the end of 2017, more than a million people were displaced by the police. insecurity there. It was the first time that the entire Ethiopian population was beginning to hear stories of Liyu police abuse, but Ethiopian Somalis had been brutalized by this force for a decade

. little discussion of security force reform or holding of officials responsible for torture. This is an opportunity for him to go beyond rhetoric and show that what happened at Ogaden Prison is punishable, and that Ethiopians deserve justice. He will send an important message to security forces across the country that torture will no longer be tolerated.

It's time to talk about it, stop Liyu's police and show the international community that even powerful people like the Somali president or police chief Liyu, Abdirahman Labagole , are not above the law.