Dear colleagues,
Education International again calls on your solidarity to ensure the immediate release of three members of the Ethiopian Teachers' Association (ETA), detained in the context of their legal trade union activities.
Currently, two ETA officers and a member of the ETA are in detention in the Addis Ababa Kality central prison. A fourth one is reported missing since May 28. The facts are all the more worrying that the two ETA officers in detention and the one missing are precisely the three colleagues who had previously been arrested, detained and tortured in December 2006 until their sudden release on 23 March 2007.
The four teachers are again accused of being members of an illegal organisation called “Ethiopian Patriotic Front”. They appeared at the Federal High Court second criminal bench on 18 June. The presiding judge adjourned their case until 2 July 2007 because various formalities had not been completed by the registration office and documents had not been delivered. Until July 2, they will be detained in the Addis Ababa Kality central prison.
EI fears that these teachers may again be submitted to ill treatment to make them confess membership to an illegal organisation.
Arrests of Ethiopian Teachers’ Association activists resumed
