; Whereas since protests started in Oromia in 2015, the Ethiopian government has charged more than 150 students, opposition leaders, and activists at the Federal High Court under the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP) and repeatedly has abused such law to limit the freedom of the press, silence independent journalists, and persecute members of the political opposition, including by— (1) charging 20 university students in March 2016 under the criminal code for protesting in front of the United States Embassy in Addis Ababa, based only on a video of their protest and a list of demands; (2) arresting Merera Gudina, Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress in December 2016 to be investigated under the ATP after he held meetings with European Union officials in Brussels; (3) charging Yonatan Tesfaye Regassa, the former head of public relations for the opposition Semayawi Party (the Blue Party), with planning, preparation, conspiracy, incitement and attempt of a terrorist act, citing Facebook posts by Regassa about the protests as evidence; and (4) arresting Getachew Shiferaw (the editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Negere Ethiopia ), Fikadu Mirkana, (a news editor and reporter with the public Oromia Radio and TV ), and blogger Zelalem Workagenehu (with an independent diaspora blog) under charges of conspiring to overthrow the government and supporting terrorism under the ATP; Whereas, on April 25, 2016, the Federal High Court sentenced the former governor of the Gambella region, Okello Akway Ochalla, to nine years imprisonment, and the trial of Ochalla and his co-defendants was marred by violations of fair trial guarantees and included the use of witness testimonies in exchange for non-prosecution under the ATP; Whereas in August 2015, eighteen Ethiopian Muslim leaders received prison sentences ranging from seven to 22 years in prison for peacefully protesting against government interference in the religious affairs of the Islamic community, some of whom were later pardoned