Johannesburg. 18 January 2012. Today CIVICUS, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and the UN Special Rapporteur on racism and xenophobia attended the Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia to hear a ruling which could define the future of the Human Rights Council (HRCO), formerly known as the Ethiopia Human Rights Council (EHRCO). HRCO has appealed to the Cassation Bench of the Federal Supreme Court challenging the decision of the Federal High Court to uphold the freezing of HRCO’s assets since 2009 by the government regulatory body.
Today the Supreme Court heard the parties and adjourned until 3 February 2012 for a final ruling on the admissibility of the appeal.
CIVICUS and the international community will continue to monitor the situation for civil society organisations in Ethiopia and call for a fair adjudication of the matter in accordance with standards of international human rights.
Brief Background
The Charities and Societies Proclamation 621/2009 (CSO Proclamation) prohibits national human rights organisations from receiving more than 10 percent of their funding from foreign sources. One major impact of the CSO Proclamation has been that many Ethiopian CSOs have given up their human rights-based operations and programmes.
The Human Rights Council (HRCO), formerly known as the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), is the first and the only surviving national, independent civil society organization (CSO) mandated to monitor, investigate and report on human rights in Ethiopia. Since its establishment in 1991, HRCO has been the leading human rights voice in the country, with a strong track record in monitoring and promoting human rights in the country. After the proclamation of the new CSO law, HRCO resolved not to rescind their human rights activities, had to forgo their foreign funding and had to significantly reduce its staff by 80 percent.
In spite of this, in December 2009, the government regulatory body, the Charities and Societies Agency (ChSA), ordered four private banks to freeze all of HRCO’s assets including its private bank accounts and sustainability fund. As the ChSA did not secure a court-ordered warrant permitting it to freeze HRCO’s assets nor does the CSO Proclamation give the ChSA the authority to block HRCO’s bank accounts, HRCO had challenged the lawfulness of the freeze before the Federal High Court but to no avail. The High Court upheld the decision of the regulatory body on October 24, 2011. HRCO has appealed this decision to the Cassation Bench of the Supreme Court, which is the final judicial organ in the country.