ETHIOPIAN political dissenters are routinely tortured in the feared Maekelawi police station in Addis Ababa, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday."Detainees described to Human Rights Watch being repeatedly slapped, kicked, punched, and beaten with sticks and gun butts. Some reported being forced into painful stress positions, such as being hung by their wrists or being made to stand with their hands tied above their heads for several hours at a time, often while being beaten," said the group’s report, titled They Want a Confession.The first of the organisation’s 12 recommendations to Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s government was to order police and security agencies at Maekelawi "to cease unlawful detention, torture, and ill-treatment of all persons in custody".Mr Desalegn is the chairman of the African Union (AU), which inherited its Addis Ababa headquarters from its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity.He was an outspoken opponent of the International C...
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