FREEDOM HOUSE
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 2007

A lack of media freedom and increased threats to civil liberties in Ethiopia are limiting social and economic development in that country, according to a new study by Freedom House, released shortly after Ethiopia’s millennium celebration.

Countries at the Crossroads is an annual survey of government performance in 30 strategically important countries worldwide. The new survey indicates that while Ethiopia has long been plagued by poor governance, deliberate efforts by the current government to curtail the freedom of the press and civil liberties continue to make Ethiopia one of the worst performers in the survey. Some of the major problems outlined in the report include restrictions on civil society, harassment and intimidation of human rights groups, and suppression of freedom of expression, particularly for anyone viewed by the government as political opposition.

The narrative and scores from Countries at the Crossroads 2007 for Ethiopia are available online.

“The recent arrests of journalists and members of the opposition party represent an extremely worrisome trend,” said Ozong Agborsangaya-Fiteu, senior program manager for Africa at Freedom House. “In reality, however, government restrictions extend even farther in limiting the freedom of average Ethiopians.”

“Without the ability to freely voice opinions, access unbiased information from independent media, and remain informed about government decisions and actions, the aspirations of ordinary Ethiopians to enjoy freedom and democracy are limited,” Ms. Agborsangaya-Fiteu added. “As noted in the report by the respected scholar Edmond Keller, Ethiopian society will continue to be stuck in a cycle of poverty and regional violence for a another decade if the government does not commit itself to greater openness and freedom.”

The Countries at the Crossroads report notes slight improvements over the past two years in Ethiopia’s justice sector, but media freedom and freedom of expression are increasingly under assault. Ethiopians have very little say over policy decisions, including poverty reduction strategies, local governance issues and food security planning, that greatly affect their everyday lives.

“In the new millennium, Ethiopia must allow civil society, political opposition, and media to not only function but to flourish,” said Daniel Calingaert, deputy director of programs at Freedom House. “It can do so quite simply by amending the draft press and NGO laws to reflect international standards and then adhering to those standards.”

Elections held in 2005 were viewed as flawed by international observers, and the country’s increased human rights violations have raised alarm as international donors hoping to aid an ailing population balk at rewarding a government that regularly violates basic civil liberties.

The Freedom House survey, Countries at the Crossroads, provides a comparative evaluation of government performance in four touchstone areas of democratic governance: Accountability and Public Voice, Civil Liberties, Rule of Law, and Anticorruption and Transparency. This survey examines these areas of performance in a set of 30 countries that are at a critical crossroads in determining their political future.

Freedom House, an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the world, has been monitoring political rights and civil liberties in Ethiopia since 1972.

Edmond J. Keller, author of the Ethiopia chapter in Countries at the Crossroads 2007, is director of the Globalization Research Center Africa and professor of political science at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He is the former director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at UCLA and is president of the African Studies Association. Professor Keller has been a visiting researcher at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Nairobi (Kenya) and a policy analyst with the United Nations Economic Committee for Africa. He is the author of more than one hundred articles on African politics, two monographs, and four co-edited volumes. The most recent is a co-edited volume with Donald Rothchild entitled Africa-US Relations: Strategic Encounters (2006).