The sweeping reforms that Ethiopia observed over the past four months have made the nation hope for better and more peaceful future.
The reforms have helped to restore peace and stability in some of the country’s most restive areas.
But, the change has also brought mob violence fueled by some segments of the youth in some areas, which undermined rule of law.
Noting that it is a result of low level of awareness among the youth about the boundaries of freedom, Experts whom ENA has talked with urged the need to control the situation immediately.
Dejene Girma Assistant Professor at School of Law and Federalism, Civil Service University told ENA that little awareness among most of the youth has led to such violations.
He said that a real change is coming to the country that would provide freedom to people, however, a considerable number of citizens are unaware of the limits of their freedom as they often involve in conflicts and violate the rule of law.
“We as citizens have to make sure that the rule of law is observed by assisting the government and law enforcement agencies. I am assuming that the government is of course doing its best level, but sometimes things get out of hand,” he stated.
Some youth driven by emotions frequently take the law into their hands and engage in violent actions, he said and adding that “such actions are unacceptable and invariably contravene with the rule of law.”
Besides low level of awareness on social accountability, failure to verify information from the social media contributes to the violation of rules, he said.
“We have to question about the information we have been observing on the social media as most of them could be false fabrications because the author behind the information may have some hidden mission as the youth relied on the information they obtained from social media as some parts of the information on social media is correct while some are not.”
According to Dejene, the violent acts poses existential threat to the safety and security of citizens and could jeopardize the ongoing reform.
“Nevertheless these acts should be stopped; we are talking about having a democratic and mid level developed country. If we are going to have democratic country, we have to respect lives and personal security,” Dejene further elaborated.
Raswork Admasie, a former instructor and senior researcher at Addis Ababa University, said countries in transition to democracy face challenges related to security.
The strength of the government in this kind of situation measured in its capacity to manage such situation and ensure rule of law.
He said, “It is the primary responsibility of the government to set up a rule and regulation and bring people who committed a crime before the court.”
Thus, he urged the government to take measures to ensure rule of law and bring the recent mob violence fueled by some segments of the youth in parts of the country to a halt.
It is only in this situation that the aspiration of the country towards building ‘a political community founded on the rule of law’ with the full respect of human and democratic rights could be realized.
Accordingly, the government needs to raise youth awareness on the significance of the limits’ of freedom, the full respect of individual and people’s basic freedoms and rights, they insisted.
The government should responsibly utilize the coercive instruments of the state to end the vigilante justice by such mobs and ensure peace and stability.