Ethiopia: Political prisoner exposes horrific torture in prison

Habtamu Ayalew (March 23, 2017)

A former political prisoner says TPLF investigators inflict unimaginable physical and psychological torture on prisoners including but not limited to damaging their reproductive organs and making them sterile for life.

In an interview with the VOA Amharic service, Habtamu Ayalew, former spokesperson for the opposition Andinet Party said not only he had endured physical torture, the psychological scar is still enduring even worse.

Habtamu said what the investigators inflict on prisoners is something he wouldn’t dare to say in public due to it’s graphic nature and that his religion would allow him to speak about the bestial acts of regime investigators.

He said investigators would hang a bottle of water on prisoners’ genitals while the prisoners are hanged on a pole to obtain forced confession. “They also tie ropes to your genital and pull it for a period of time,” he told the VOA. “I know so many prisoners who have become sterile due to this heinous torture.”

He said prisoners at the Central Investigation Bureau in Addis Ababa,   widely considered as Ethiopia’s torture chamber, are only allowed to use the bathroom twice a day for an average of 2 min at a time.

Habtamu recounted his experience at the Investigation Bureau where he was once put in solitary confinement without access to a bathroom and was forced to use plastic bags and water bottles. “They would also punch you on the back, right where your kidneys are, so you will take a leak on yourself. They would tie prisoners to a chair for days on till they defecate on themselves.”

Habtamu mentioned by name some of the political prisoners that have undergone through some of the despicable acts of torture: Abebe Wergesa, Lejisa Alemayehu, Angaw Tegegn, Agbaw Setegn, Engidaw Wanaw and Abay Zewdu.

Security forces arrested Habtamu Ayalew and detained him for over two years falsely accusing him of having links to Patriotic Ginbot 7, an armed group fighting the tyrannical regime for a democratic change. He was later released and came to the United States to get medical attention to a serious ailment that resulted from the torture he had endured at prison.