OLLAA has recently spoken with the lawyer and a colleague of Anwar Sani, a man who has been detained by the Ethiopian government since June 2020, regarding the charges he faces and his prospects for justice.
Prior to his arrest, Anwar Sani was a lecturer at Rift Valley College and a member of the OFC. His colleagues describe him as a peaceful and sociable man who never married. He spent his life in Harar City, Area 17, until he was arrested on June 30, 2020.
Like countless other Oromos and members of the OFC, Mr. Sani was arrested and accused of violating Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism lawin the aftermath of Hachalu Hundesa’s assassination, when thousands took to the streets in protest.
Following his arrest, Mr. Sani was first detained in the Harar City prison for over six months. He was then transferred to Dire Dawa prison because his charges fell under Ethiopia’s Terrorism Law, meaning that his case would be required to be heard in federal courts. To date, no verdict has been reached in Mr. Sani’s case. According to our sources, even though the police have continually failed to introduce specific or tangible evidence showing that Mr. Sani violated the anti-terrorism law, the court keeps granting the police additional days to investigate his case, leaving him to languish in prison for close to two years now. This delay has been especially painful for Mr. Sani, as he lost his father in November 2021, and more senior OFC leaders who were arrested at the same time were released in early January 2022.
Despite the fact that he has been detained for such a long period, Mr. Sani’s colleagues at the OFC continue to hold him in high regard. Owing to his status as a well respected member of the community, in last week’s OFC’s general assembly meeting, he was elected to be a member of the Executive Committee and Head of Economic Affairs of the party.
Anwar Sani’s story exemplifies the ways in which the best and brightest of the Oromo community suffer at the hands of the Ethiopian government, who often arrest or kill advocates in order to ensure that they cannot speak up for their people and change things for the better.
International Legal Standards
Under international law, the right to liberty protects citizens from arbitrary arrest and detentions, which are arrests and detentions that are not in accordance with the procedures established by law. The continued detention of an individual without charges or a trial has been found to constitute arbitrary detention, as all persons charged with violating the law have the right to be tried within a reasonable time.
There is a global pattern of States using terrorist laws to target journalists, political opponents, and members of civil society. Since the Ethiopian government promulgated its first anti-terrorism law in 2009, numerous organizations have criticized the law as containing an overly broad definition of “terrorist acts” which does not comply with international legal standards. Although the law was replaced in 2020 with proclamation 1176/2020, critics have noted that the definition of terrorism still criminalizes “similar categories of non-violent crime”, and that the law restricts the right to freedom of expression.