# Authorities arrest journalists and Tigrayan civilians under the 2021 emergency Date: 2021 ## The fact In early November 2021, as the nationwide emergency took effect, Ethiopian authorities detained journalists and large numbers of Tigrayan civilians in Addis Ababa and elsewhere. Rights groups and the Committee to Protect Journalists documented the cluster. ## Context Police implemented the emergency. He requested the SoE. CPJ and EHRC reported. Allegation of ethnic profiling is independently reported, not a court caption against him. Later releases are lag. The SoE itself is 2 November. The OHCHR report is 3 November. The prime minister of Ethiopia is chief executive under the 1995 constitution as amended, chairs the Council of Ministers, and commands the ENDF in practice. He does not write AU Assembly resolutions, OHCHR investigation reports, IMF board decisions, or Somali federal statutes. ## Evidence and sources Office of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia carries the official instrument or communique. Committee to Protect Journalists records the same dated act independently. ## Significance The path is [democratic resilience](/drivers/democratic-resilience) and personal-data / civic rights: a completed journalist-and-civilian detention cluster under emergency is a press-and-minority harm path. ## What is established and what is not Established: November 2021 documented arrests of journalists and Tigrayan civilians under the emergency, independently reported. Not established: a unique national detention census, or a completed criminal judgment against the prime minister for those arrests. What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions. The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit. CPJ documented. Courts have not issued a completed presidential criminal judgment on this cluster.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Authorities arrest journalists and Tigrayan civilians under the 2021 emergency, not a later speech about Authorities arrest journalists and Tigrayan civilians under the 2021 emergency. Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Authorities arrest journalists and Tigrayan civilians under the 2021 emergency on 2021-11-05 is not a licence to treat every later Office of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor decree exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Authorities arrest journalists and Tigrayan civilians under the 2021 emergency into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He requested the emergency under which police arrested. CPJ documented. Courts have not issued a completed presidential criminal judgment on this cluster. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series. Under the nationwide state of emergency declared on 2 November 2021, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, after visiting detention sites and interviewing detainees and families, said on 18 November that arrests and detention conditions under the emergency were not being implemented consistently with necessity, proportionality and freedom from discrimination. EHRC could not confirm a nationwide total, but in Kirkos sub-city alone it recorded 714 detainees as of 11 November, including 128 women, and estimated that thousands may have been detained across Addis Ababa. It found that most detainees were of ethnic Tigrayan origin and that the majority had been held on informants’ tips; law-enforcement authorities told the Commission that the “arrests are not ethnic based” and only appeared so because the two groups designated as terrorist organizations were ethnically based. The UN Human Rights Committee later said the emergency’s removal of legal safeguards led to mass arbitrary arrest and detention of several thousand people suspected of supporting outlawed opposition groups, including mass targeting of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa and other cities. The Committee separately said the emergency powers resulted in ethnic profiling. Some detainees were released, but EHRC said some were rearrested on the grounds that their release had not been approved by the emergency Command Post. Abiy Ahmed was prime minister and head of the federal executive during the emergency. ## People - Abiy Ahmed: https://factrail.ai/people/sec-abiy-ahmed ## Drivers - Protection of Minority Rights: https://factrail.ai/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights - Democratic Resilience: https://factrail.ai/drivers/democratic-resilience ## Sources - https://docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=%2Br84hcrtK71wLLKe1mvrGVsfWsuN0Ej2G5lAF4%2Fq8etI7ORpCpmRPmyxj%2BoW4KK1aHulzdjbZVpgJgv7yU6rrg%3D%3D - https://ehrc.org/addis-ababa-the-arrest-and-condition-of-persons-detained-in-connection-with-the-state-of-emergency-requires-urgent-attention/ - https://cpj.org/2021/11/ethiopian-authorities-arrest-journalists-amid-state-of-emergency/ - https://www.pmo.gov.et/ ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/et-journalists-arrests-2021