; Whereas the arrest, detention, and demeaning treatment of hundreds of dissidents, including leaders of legally registered opposition parties such as Bekele Gerba, arrested in December 2015, and Merera Gudina, arrested in November 2016, of the Oromo Federalist Congress, Yonatan Tesfaye Regassa, arrested in December 2015, of the Semayawi Party (the Blue Party), and the arrest and sentencing of Okello Akway Ochalla, former governor of the Gambella region, are indicative of repressive political conditions that prevail in the country; Whereas the Ethiopian Human Rights Council reported last year at least 102 protestor deaths from November 2015 to February 2016 across 9 administrative zones, Human Rights Watch reports that Ethiopian security forces have killed at least 500 peaceful protestors, and Amnesty International reported that more than 800 protesters have been killed since November 2015 and that number is likely higher; Whereas, on October 9, 2016, the Government of Ethiopia imposed a far-reaching, six-month state of emergency that restricted a broad range of actions, including blocking mobile Internet access and social media communications, undermining freedoms of association, expression, and peaceful assembly, which led to the arrest of over 26,000 persons, and which was extended by four months on March 30, 2017; Whereas, on October 10, 2016, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and the United Nations Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances and on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions publicly called on the Government of Ethiopia to allow an international commission of inquiry to investigate the protests and the violence used against peaceful demonstrators; Whereas former detainees report torture, lack of rations, and other forms of serious abuse in detention facilities