Ethiopia’s re-education camps are open again

“PEACE IS FOR all of us—let us defend it.” These words, printed on a plain white T-shirt, seem innocuous enough. Yet not for Bereket, a 17-year-old lad from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. On September 22nd he was arrested as he walked home from church with two friends. He and about 1,200 other young men were taken to a military camp for a month of “lessons” about the constitution and the rule of law. They were released on October 18th, after Ethiopia’s police chief said their “brainwashing” was complete. Bereket, like most of 3,000 people arrested in this way in September, was never charged. He was, however, given a commemorative T-shirt.

The background to the arrests was communal violence, which raged in Addis Ababa for several days in September. According to the police, at least 28 people were killed in riots in the old city centre around September 14th. Many were Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group. Shortly after that, Oromo activists held a rally to welcome the return of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a previously banned rebel group that had fought for self-determination. After the event young men, some wearing OLF colours, attacked people in the city belonging to other ethnic groups, killing at least 58.