Ethiopia: Bloggers of the World, Unite!

by ERecycler

Today is the 25th day in jail for Zone 9 Bloggers in Ethiopia. They have not been charged; in fact, the government could not come up with reasonable cause for detaining the 6 bloggers and 3 journalists. It has now come to our attention that two have been tortured. All they did was blog about conditions in their own country. Corruption has gone out of control; in a decade beginning in 2001 $16.5 billions have been illicitly transferred to foreign banks [according to Washington, DC-based Global Financial Integrity]. There are chronic water, power and food shortages. The state security literally eavesdrops on telephone conversations and controls Internet connectivity making Ethiopia the least served in Africa. The ruling party took office through the barrel of the gun and divided the country arbitrarily along ethnic lines [and later orchestrated a sham elections that it won].

Ethiopia’s independent publishers may face another hurdle

A CPJ Guest Blogger

Newspapers are significant in Ethiopia because there are no other independent media sources in the country. (Ethiopia Forums)

>In what appears to be one of a collection of measures to silence the press ahead of 2015 elections, Ethiopian authorities in the Communications Ministry are preparing a new system to control the distribution of print media. Privately owned newspapers and magazines, possibly the only remaining independent news sources in the country, would face more state control if the proposal is set into motion.

Wikileaks documents on Meles Zenawi, Ethio-chinese relationship and oppositions

Wikileaks released hundreds of documents which specify Ethiopian internal issues. These E-letters corresponded by American embassy officers who personally know Meles Zenawi and other higher officials. It’s all about Meles Zenawi’s personality, Ethiopia Chinese relationship, Eng. Hailu Shawel, Lucy, Ethiopian prisons and more, Please Click here to read WikiLeaks documentation On Ethiopia.

The “Farce” of U.S. Diplocrisy

by Alemayehu G. Mariam

Is the Obama Administration’s human rights policy a “farce”?

Last week U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Syrian president Bashar al-Assad a “terrorist” criminal and called Assad’s electoral plans a “farce”. “Assad’s is making partnership with terrorist elements, attracting terrorists and engaging in terrorist activities against his own people.” Assad’s planned presidential elections are “staged elections [that] are a farce. They’re an insult. They are a fraud on democracy, on the Syrian people and on the world.”