Nov 3, 2009

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian opposition parties say nearly 450 of their members have been jailed to stop them running as candidates in national elections in May next year.

Documents given to Reuters by four opposition parties listed the prisoners' names, the dates on which they were arrested and the jails in which they were being held.

One party, the All Ethiopia Unity Organisation (AEUO), has recorded seven murders of members over the last 12 months that it says were politically motivated.

"These jailings are to stop our members running in elections," Gizachew Shiferaw, deputy leader of the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party, told Reuters. "It has become a strategy for the ruling party. Ethiopia is a one-party state."

Most analysts say the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) will easily win the 2010 elections -- but opposition parties say that is because government harassment will stop their members contesting.

The authorities strongly deny the claims and say only criminals have been arrested.

"Nobody has been imprisoned or killed for political activity, to my knowledge," Bereket Simon, the Ethiopian government's head of information, told Reuters, adding that the authorities would further investigate the documented names.

"Our preliminary investigation indicates that these people are engaged in real crime," he said. "We can't release criminals because they are opposition members."