503 people were arrested at the annual Thanksgiving festival of Irreecha on Oct. 2 under suspicion they were planning to incite violence during the festival. Typically, the Thanksgiving festival includes many people carrying Oromo Liberation Front and Oromo Federalist party flags, but there were none in sight at this year’s festival. By the Thanksgiving festival, Ethiopia had arrested over 9,000 people in relation to the violence. “We have to distinguish between peaceful, lawful political mobilisation and the kind of rhetoric, the kind of ultranationalistic militant violent political activism, that results in death and injury,” Timothewos said. “Amid a pandemic, reasonable restrictions on public gatherings may be justified,” stated Laetitia Bader, the Horn of Africa director for Human Rights Watch, prior to the Thanksgiving festival.

Source: Ethiopian News October 13, 2020 07:18 UTC