The War on Terror Has Turned Ethiopia Into a Surveillance State

How Debrestion & Co are Making Ethiopia A Prison State

There’s a knock at your door. You open it, only to find several grave-looking police officers accusing you of a crime you didn’t commit. They pull out records of your most recent phone calls and tie you to your alleged co-conspirator, and now you’re screwed. This is Ethiopia.

According to a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, Ethiopian surveillance of phones and emails is rampant. Eskinder Nega, a journalist and dissident blogger, reports being shown emails, text messages, and phone recordings when approached by Ethiopian police who were investigating him. Nega’s newspaper, Ethiopis, was shut down for being critical of the Ethiopian government’s abuses in freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Nega was sentenced to 18 years in prison for allegedly conspiring against the government in July of 2012.

TPLF's Long-arm Don't Spare Diaspora Ethiopians

  

“Ethiopia certainly doesn’t have the resources or capacity to engage in surveillance on the scale of the NSA—very few governments do,” Cynthia Wong, a Senior Researcher at HRW, told me. “The biggest difference, however, is that Ethiopia is using surveillance

Ethiopia, the only Sub-Saharan Country with Nationwide Internet Filtering

I can't help but to be proud and happy when my homeland, Ethiopia has received its Internet Freedom Report Card from Freedom House in which it slipped in its Internet Freedom index from 75 last year to 79 this year. Thanks to the visionary late prime minister, Ethiopia is investing billions of taxpayers' money and the government maintains a strict system of controls over digital media, making Ethiopia the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa to implement nationwide internet filtering. Well, our developmental government can not be accused for having one of the lowest rates of internet and mobile telephone penetration in the world, as meager infrastructure, a government monopoly over the telecom sector, and obstructive telecom policies have notably hindered the growth of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the country.

Our huge investment has returns: two individuals were prosecuted for their ICT activities, while harsh sentences were upheld for