{"id":79198,"date":"2016-10-04T04:23:01","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T02:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/ethiopia-more-than-150-dead-after-security-forces-fire-into-crowd\/"},"modified":"2016-10-04T04:23:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T02:23:01","slug":"ethiopia-more-than-150-dead-after-security-forces-fire-into-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/ethiopia-more-than-150-dead-after-security-forces-fire-into-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia: More than 150 Dead after Security Forces Fire into Crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/ethiopia-more-than-150-dead-after-security-forces-fire-into-crowd?lang=en\">Ethiopia: More than 150 Dead after Security Forces Fire into Crowd<\/a>: <\/p>\n<p>In response to actions by Ethiopian security forces leading to the death of more than 150 people attending the Irreecha religious and cultural celebration in the Bishoftu town in Ethiopia&#39;s Oromia region on October 2, Freedom House issued the following statement:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The deaths in Bishoftu occurred because security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition at a crowd of over a million people celebrating a religious occasion,&rdquo; said Vukasin Petrovic, director for Africa programs.&nbsp;&ldquo;The government of Ethiopia should allow a truly independent body to investigate the tragedy at Bishoftu as well as security forces&rsquo; well-documented record of using excessive force against peaceful gatherings.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Background:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Irreecha is an annual holiday for giving thanks, celebrated by the Oromo people, Ethiopia&rsquo;s largest ethnic group. While firm numbers remain unavailable, eyewitnesses say that the total number of deaths on October 2 may exceed 300.<\/p>\n<p>Ethiopia is rated Not Free in&nbsp;<em>Freedom in the World 2016<\/em>, Not Free in&nbsp;<em>Freedom of the Press 2016<\/em>, and Not Free in&nbsp;<em>Freedom on the Net 2015<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p> <i>Distributed by APO on behalf of Freedom House.<\/i><\/p>\n<div><em>Freedom House is an independent watchdog organization that supports democratic change, monitors the status of freedom around the world, and advocates for democracy and human rights.<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em>Join us on&nbsp;<\/em><em>Facebook<\/em><em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<\/em><em>Twitter<\/em><em>&nbsp;(freedomhousedc)<\/em><em>.&nbsp;Stay up to date with Freedom House&rsquo;s latest&nbsp;<\/em><em>news and events<\/em><em>&nbsp;by signing up for our<\/em>&nbsp;<em>newsletter<\/em><em>.&nbsp;<\/em><\/div>\n<div class=\"well well-sm\"><b>Media files<\/b><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/thumb\/91939c8f6825065\/200\/70\" alt=\"Freedom House\"\/><br \/>Download logo<\/div>\n<p><small><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/ethiopia-more-than-150-dead-after-security-forces-fire-into-crowd?lang=en\">APO &#8211; Africa-Newsroom: latest news releases related to Africa<\/a><\/small><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ethiopia: More than 150 Dead after Security Forces Fire into Crowd: In response to actions by Ethiopian security forces leading to the death of more than 150 people attending the Irreecha religious and cultural celebration in the Bishoftu town in Ethiopia&#39;s Oromia region on October 2, Freedom House issued the following statement: &ldquo;The deaths in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[3813,8491,3925,1213,732,11697,3416,3432,416,4261],"class_list":{"0":"post-79198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-after","8":"tag-crowd","9":"tag-dead","10":"tag-ethiopia","11":"tag-fire","12":"tag-forces","13":"tag-into","14":"tag-more","15":"tag-security","16":"tag-than","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}