|
URGENT
HUMANITARIAN APPEAL
Ref.:OHRC/11/98
Date: 16th March 1998
Miss Tamara Prischnegg, an Austrian young lady from Vienna is
being held by Ogaden National Liberation Front guerrillas, who
captured her in last February 1998, while she was strolling
between Dhanaan and Godey.
Her relatives and friends, who were apprehensive for her safety,
contacted the Ogaden Human Rights Committee and Ogaden Relief
Association asking the good offices of the two Ogadeni Organizations
to free Miss Tamara Prischnegg.
Hence, the Ogaden Human Rights Committee, requests the political
leadership of the ONLF and its military commanders in the field
the immediate and unconditional release of Miss Tamara Prischnegg
on humanitarian grounds.
The Ogaden Human Rights Committee urges the Austrian government
to seek the speedy release of Miss Tamara Prischnegg as well.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The ONLF has called since early 1992 for referendum on self-determination
and independence for the Ogaden.
Since,
20 April 1994, the Ogaden has been a virtually closed military
zone, where bloody battles are being fought between Ethiopian
People's Revolutionary Democratic Front forces and combatants
of the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
Since its foundation, on 13 June 1995, the Ogaden Human Rights
Committee, has carried out extensive investigation of the human
rights situation throughout the Ogaden, and has documented gross
violations, including illegal imprisonments, mass arrests without
charges or trials, enforced disappearances, torture, rape, extrajudicial
killings, abduction, forced labour, hostage-taking, systematic
religious and racial persecution, dispossession and widespread
looting by the current EPRDF government in Ethiopia. (See Human
Rights violations in the Ogaden by Ethiopia, 1991 to 1996 ref:
OHRC/01/96, Deterioration of Human Rights Situation in the Ogaden
unabated ref: OHRC/07/96, Mass Killings, Torture and Disappearances
in the Ogaden ref: OHRC/08/96 and Ogaden: NO Rights, No Democracy
ref: OHRC/08/97).
Ogaden Human Rights Committee (OHRC)
|
