OLLAA’s staff has spoken with Gutu Mul’isa, a former member of the Ethiopian parliament, about his arbitrary arrest and detention following the assassination of Hachalu Hundessa in June 2020.
Gutu Mul’isa was born in Ilfeta, in the West Shewa zone of Oromia, and graduated with a diploma. Gutu is a husband and father of two children: a daughter and a son. Gutu reports that he has faced numerous human rights abuses at the hands of various Ethiopian regimes, including torture that resulted in the loss of a finger and multiple assassination attempts on his life.
In 2005, Gutu was elected as a member of the House of Peoples Representatives representing the OFC during the Ethiopian national elections in Ginchi district, West Shewa zone. He served as a Member of Parliament for the next five years. When his term came to an end in 2011, he reports he was unlawfully arrested by government forces and charged with violating Ethiopia’s terrorism law, as government forces accused him of supporting the OLF, a political party that, at the time, was designated as a terrorist organization. He was convicted and sentenced to nine years imprisonment by the Federal High Court, Lideta branch. He then appealed his conviction before the federal Supreme Court, which reduced the sentence to four years and five months of imprisonment. After serving his sentence, Gutu was released from prison in 2020.
Following the assassination of the Oromo artist and activist, Hachalu Hundessa on June 29, 2020, Gutu attended Hundessa’s funeral on June 30th. Gutu, along with many other individuals who attended the funeral, was arbitrarily arrested in Finfine that same day. Following his arrest, Gutu learned that the police had accused him of committing homicide and property destruction, and was charged with violating Ethiopia’s terrorism law. Gutu maintains his innocence of these charges and believes his detention was a political matter. Eventually, the charges against him were dropped, and he was released after one year and seven months of unlawful detention.
International Laws
International law, including the ICCPR, ACHPR, and the Ethiopian constitution, protects citizens from arbitrary arrests and detentions, which are arrests and detentions that are not in accordance with the procedures established by law. Other international and regional human rights instruments, including CAT, ICCPR and the ACHPR, all of which Ethiopia is party to, strictly prohibit torture and inhuman treatment. According to these legal instruments, victims of unlawful detentions are “guaranteed access to effective remedies and reparations, capable of providing restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.”