After dozens of university students were kidnapped by an armed group in Ethiopia’s Oromia region earlier this month, the government blamed the kidnappings on rebels from the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), who denied the allegations. Video posts circulating on Facebook have since claimed that Human Rights Watch called on the international community to designate OLA as a terrorist organization in response to the kidnappings. This is false: Human Rights Watch made no such call, and its spokesperson confirmed that the claim was fabricated by misrepresenting the organization’s logo.
The after published on Facebook on July 10, 2024, contains the following text in Amharic: “International human rights called for the OLF to be classified as international terrorists.”
The OLA split from the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in 2018 when the latter renounced its armed struggle. However, the Ethiopian government and its allies continue to use the terms OLF and the name “Shane” to refer to the OLA.
The post includes a 95-second video clip featuring the Human Rights Watch logo.
In the video, a robot voice discusses a supposed Human Rights Watch report on ‘ransomware’ (sic) and kidnappings by OLA in the Oromia region” and claims that the report prompts the international community to classify OLA as a terrorist organization.
The video features photos of OLA fighters, the Human Rights Watch logo, buses, the UN headquarters and the US embassy in Addis Ababa.
Thirty-two seconds into the clip, a screenshot of an English-language report is shown. The text makes no mention of a call to classify the rebels as terrorists; it merely describes the kidnappings in Oromia and names the OLA as the perpetrators.
AFP Fact Check found more than 100 Facebook accounts that posted the same claim between July 10 and 11, 2024. These accounts regularly share content in a coordinated manner that benefits the ruling party.
Similar claims were also shared on X here And here.
Kidnappings in Oromia
International media reported that dozens of Ethiopian students from Debrak University in the Amhara region were abducted by an unknown armed group on July 2, 2024 while traveling by bus through the neighboring Oromia region (archived hereThe families of the abductees said the kidnappers called them demanding a ransom of 700,000 Ethiopian birr (US$12,000).
On July 10, 2024, the government of Oromia accused the OLA rebels for the kidnappings, adding that “160 of the 167 students… were freed through an operation by the security forces” (archived here).
The rebel group refused this and claimed that the kidnapping was orchestrated by members of the ruling party (archived here).
Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest and most populous region, has been in the grip of an armed insurgency since 2018. Since then, federal troops have been battling OLA rebels in Oromia, but peace talks have failed to make significant progress.
The OLA is classified by authorities as a “terrorist organization” and has been accused by the government of orchestrating massacres, which the rebels deny. The authorities, in turn, are accused of carrying out an indiscriminate crackdown that has fueled resentment among Oromos.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Council reported on July 12, 2024 that some of the kidnapped students had been released after their families paid the demanded ransom and that a few others had escaped, while dozens were still kidnapped (archived here).
Some families of the kidnapped students concerns expressed that their children had not been released (archived here).
However, the claim that Human Rights Watch has called for OLA to be classified as an international terrorist organization is unfounded.
Artificial voice
In the video clip, a robotic female voice speaks halting English.
“Human Rights Watch reports on ransomware (sic) and kidnappings by the OLA in the Oromia region,” it said. “In recent weeks, the Oromia region of Ethiopia has seen a disturbing increase in kidnappings for ransom by the Oromo Liberation Army, OLA.”
“This armed insurgent group has targeted civilians, particularly students, and demanded significant ransoms,” the report continues. “This report urges the international (long pause) community to classify the OLA as a terrorist organization due to these increasing human rights violations.”
This robotic voice is synthetically created. Unnatural speech patterns and pauses, which are a clear indication that it is artificial, can be heard throughout.
Numerous online tools allow users to freely create synthetic voices by simply entering text. AFP Fact Check fed the words from the video into the popular voice creation tool Veed.io and was able to re-creating the same female voice.
No HRW call
AFP Fact Check searched online for Human Rights Watch’s alleged call to classify OLA as a terrorist organization and found that no such call has been made. Nor has any report been published on the kidnappings in Oromia.
Furthermore, the human rights organization confirmed to AFP Fact Check that the claim was fabricated by misusing the logo.
“HRW does not advocate for the designation of any group as terrorist in any country. This is outside the scope of our mandate,” Human Rights Watch said in an email.
“There are no publications by HRW on the recent abductions of students in Oromia,” the report continued, adding: “This claim is therefore factually incorrect.”
Referring to screenshots of a purported report used in the clip, Human Rights Watch said it “never saw the publication in the video.”
AFP Fact Check conducted multiple searches of the text of the alleged report to see if it had been published online by anyone, but nothing was found.
Old pictures
AFP fact check done reverse image search and discovered that the photos used in the fake video are old and have nothing to do with the recent kidnappings.
The photos of OLA fighters come from a post published on the rebels’ website. official website in 2023 (archived here) and from film material published by France 24 in 2021 (archived here).
Meanwhile, the photo of a bus with the name and logo of Debark University is also old. shows a journey to a seedling planting event in 2019 (archived here).
