A/HRC/44/49/Add.1 parties were lifted by the current Government, many new and pre-existing movements began to emerge. Though new requirements were put in place, such as an increase in the number of signatures required for party registration from 1,500 to 10,000, many report the political environment to be increasingly open. In November 2019, the ruling party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, announced that it would be renamed the Ethiopian Prosperity Party, with the hope of uniting the country and addressing ethnic polarization. As well as encouraging new parties, the National Election Board of Ethiopia is updating the country’s voting systems in order to address accusations of fraud, which characterized past elections. A new electoral law, adopted on 24 August 2019, requires the Government to collaborate with the media, refrain from obstructing the work of the media during elections and improve access by political parties to political processes. 2 7. Yet change also brings challenges. One challenge involves the emergence of new players competing for political power, some of them making use of sectarian or identitybased divides or exploiting the frustration of those receiving less benefit than in the past. In October 2019, 86 people were reportedly killed during protests amid what many interlocutors referred to as inter-ethnic clashes in various locations in Oromia Regional State. While the efforts of the Government to ensure justice and respect for the rule of law were unanimously recognized during the meetings held with the Special Rapporteur, several interlocutors considered that the Government had not taken sufficient measures to protect human lives, nor taken enough steps to hold perpetrators of current – or past – human rights violations to account. Numerous interlocutors denounced the manipulation of ethnic division by the elites. Some others expressed concerns that the response to the October 2019 events, and to those that took place in early 2020, 3 might suggest that some practices from the past had not completely disappeared. III. Legal standards guiding freedom of expression in Ethiopia 8. Ethiopia acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 11 June 1993, thereby pledging, inter alia, to ensure and protect the right of its population to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, under article 19 (2). It is stated in article 19 (1) of the Covenant that everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference. Under article 19 (3), any restriction imposed on those rights must be provided by law and be necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others or for the protection of national security, public order, public health or public morals. 9. Ethiopia is party to a number of other international human rights treaties, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, all of which contain relevant provisions for the protection and promotion of the rights to freedom of opinion and expression. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the Government’s announcement that it will accede to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. 10. During its last universal periodic review, in 2019, Ethiopia acknowledged in its national report (A/HRC/WG.6/33/ETH/1) many of its own violations – including “a systemic violation” of the right to be free from torture and cruel or degrading treatment by the security and law enforcement agencies, the use of torture in prisons, notably in the Ma’ekelawi detention centre where suspects were “kept in inhuman conditions”, the jailing of journalists and of members and leaders of the opposition, and the legal restrictions placed on civil society organizations working in the area of human rights. Ethiopia accepted over 100 more recommendations than it accepted in 2014 – many of which relate to freedom of expression principles, including revising the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, the 2 3 4 For instance, 76 staff of media organizations are said to have been accredited in November 2019 for the referendum on the creation of a Sidama region. See www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/01/ethiopia-authorities-crack-down-on-oppositionsupporters-with-mass-arrests/.