Teen dies in election protest

Addis Ababa - Ethiopian police sealed off a technical college in Addis Ababa on Tuesday as student protests against last month's disputed polls spread in defiance of a government ban on demonstrations, witnesses said.

A day after a teenager was killed and more than 500 students arrested amid sporadic clashes with security forces at campuses in the north and east of the capital, police moved to break up a demonstration at the Addis Ababa Tegbareed Industrial Technical College in the southern part of the city.

An AFP correspondent on the scene said truckloads of riot police had closed off access to the school in Addis Ababa's Mexico neighbourhood, and moved into the institution where students were chanting anti-government slogans accusing the ruling party of having stolen the May 15 polls.

Students severely injured

Students threw rocks at police, prompting them to move onto the grounds and beat several demonstrators with batons, according to an eyewitness, Japanese teacher Isao Okutsu, who said he had been "upset" by the severity of the blows.

"When the students saw the police coming they became violent and started throwing stones," Okutsu said. "Then the police came inside the school and started beating the students with sticks."

"The beating was very hard, it upset me," he said, adding he had seen one female student taken to hospital after being hit.

Government officials have blamed the country's main opposition group, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) for inciting the students to defy a one-month ban on all demonstrations in the capital and to commit violence.

The CUD has led opposition claims that the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) is trying to steal the election through massive vote rigging and fraud.

Late on Monday, after announcing the death of a female high school student and the wounding of six other people in clashes near a teachers' college, the government appealed to parents to discourage their children from participating in the protests.

"We call on all parents not to let their children to be instruments of anti-peace forces," the information ministry said in a statement aired on national television warning the opposition to stop fomenting unrest.

Police said they had detained 520 students from the Kotebe Teacher's College and Addis Ababa University, the centre of deadly rioting in 2001 in which more than 30 people were killed.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi imposed a month-long post-election ban on all demonstrations in the capital and surrounding areas shortly after the polls closed on May 15.

Edited by Fidelia van der Linde

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