Tegbar League’s executive committee in Addis Ababa today has called on the people of Ethiopia to rise up in unison for a nationwide civil disobedience to force the Woyanne dictatorship free our leaders.
The call is made to citizens through out the country to participate in the civil disobedience by blocking roads and major highways in the month of August unless the Woyanne dictatorship releases the legitimate representatives of the people of Ethiopia from jail.
It is the duty and obligation of a people to protect its legitimately elected leaders. In our case, we Ethiopians have allowed our leaders to languish in jail for over a year now. We must say no more.
An Internet watchdog on Tuesday accused Ethiopia of blocking scores of anti-government Web sites and millions of Weblogs in one of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest cases of cyber-censorship.
Web monitor, the OpenNet Initiative, said the Horn of Africa country was stopping citizens from viewing opposition-linked Web sites, and blogs hosted by Blogger, an online journal community owned by Internet search engine Google Inc.
Ethiopia dismissed the report as “a baseless allegation”.
“We may have technical problems from time to time,” Information Ministry spokesman Zemedkun Tekle. “But we have not done anything like that and we have no intention of doing anything like that.”
The OpenNet Initiative — a partnership between Harvard Law School, and universities of Toronto and Cambridge and Oxford — said it had gathered proof of interference.
“We have run diagnostic tests using volunteers in Ethiopia which indicate that they are blocking IP addresses,” OpenNet research director Robert Faris said, referring to the unique numeric addresses of Web sites.
“The evidence is overwhelming that that is what they are doing. … Most of the sites that we found blocked were related to freedom of expression, human rights and political opposition,” he said by telephone from the United States.
The allegations could be embarrassing for the Ethiopian government, which is a major ally of the United States in Africa and has been criticised for a post-election crackdown on opposition that killed nearly 200 people in 2005.
“I think it’s a decision that makes the Ethiopian government look extremely hostile to free speech and to open political discourse,” said Ethan Zuckerman, research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society in the United States.
The Ethiopian blockages are part of a growing global trend, Faris said.
“As recently as five years ago, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia were the only countries that were filtering the Internet. Now we have found two dozen,” he added.
The full list of countries will be published in a book later in the year titled ‘Access Denied: the Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering’ published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Part of an initial report on the findings, that will be presented at a conference in Cambridge later this month, has been seen by Reuters.
OpenNet found some filtering of pornographic and political Web sites in Islamic North African countries including Tunisia.
Some pornographic and anti-Islamic sites were also blocked in Sudan, although the Web sites of many human rights groups critical of the situation in Darfur remained visible.
But it found no evidence to back up reports of online censorship in Eritrea and Zimbabwe. Ethiopia was the only widespread campaign identified in sub-Saharan Africa, the OpenNet report said.
“We are very interested in Ethiopia because it is a very recent entry into this field. Its internet penetration is very low but it is still going to the trouble of blocking the internet. That shows the lengths that the regime is willing to go to,” said Faris.
Ethiopia has one of the world’s lowest Internet access rates — only two out of every thousand Ethiopians were logging on in 2003, according to the United Nations Development Programme’s latest Human Development Report.
But it also has one of Africa’s healthiest blogging scenes, fuelled by a handful of anonymous writers in the capital Addis Ababa and the large communities of politically active Ethiopians in the United States and Europe.
Bloggers like Nazret.com (http://nazret.com/blog) published the first eyewitness accounts of political unrest that followed controversial national elections in 2005. Resident bloggers including Seminawork (http://seminawork.blogspot.com) have provided daily updates of the ongoing trial of opposition politicians. Ethiopundit (http://ethiopundit.blogspot.com) and Carpe Diem Ethiopia (http://carpediemethiopia.blogspot.com) are among a long list of Diaspora bloggers well known for their scathing political commentary.
Ethiopian bloggers have started displaying ‘Blocked in Ethiopia’ badges on their websites and swapping technical tips on how to get round the filters. Other sites currently inaccessible in Ethiopia include the home page for the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (http://www.kinijit.org) and 39 out of the 61 Ethiopian weblogs tracked by GlobalVoices, a website that reports on weblogs outside the West part-funded by Reuters.
OpenNet said many of the sites were caught in a blanket blockage of blogs hosted by Google’s Blogger service, home to many millions of blogs across the world, most of them nothing to do with politics.
OpenNet said it found evidence of the blockage by recruiting volunteers who ran programs on their computers inside Ethiopia scanning the network run by the state monopoly provider Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation. The results were then emailed back to OpenNet for analysis.
The scans followed the individual units or “packets” of digital data that get sent out whenever an internet user types a web address into a browser’s address box. “We found that the packets were dropped at the same place… Any packet associated with a particular IP address was dropped. You get a ‘time out’ message when you try to access the site. Your request never leaves the country…It is the simplest and bluntest way of blocking,” said Mr Faris.
Gulf Weekly — IT has been a week of mixed fortunes for sports in Bahrain. Where top cueist Habib Subah flattered to deceive at the Asian Snooker Championship in Pakistan by failing to make the quarter-finals, Maryam Yusuf Jamal flourished in Europe setting the year’s best time for the mile and winning the 1,500 metres race at the Oslo Golden League in the same week.Subah’s performance was heartbreaking while Maryam’s heartening with the World Athletics Championships around the corner.I have not met Maryam, who is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, but her story has always inspired me, in the same way that Olympic champion sprinter Wilma Glodean Rudolph’s did.
For a refugee who fled Ethiopia to escape political oppression, Maryam has done remarkably well. Born Zenebech Tola in Arsi, the village that also gave world long distance champion Haile Gebreselassie to athletics, Maryam sought asylum with her husband and coach Tareq Yaqoob (former Mnashu Taye) in Switzerland in 2002, according to the IAAF’s official web site.
Belonging to the ethnic Oromo group, the single largest group in Ethiopia but sidelined in mainline politics, Maryam began running at a very late stage, and out of compulsion rather than choice: to reach school which was a good 15 miles away and across hilly terrain.
But her precocious talent was evident right from the beginning. She even met the qualifying standards for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, but the Ethiopian Athletics Federation denied her permission to represent her home country.
Disappointed and desperate, Maryam sought Swiss citizenship, and failed. She even signed multiple citizenship papers with four other countries – Canada, Turkey, France and Bahrain. Maryam finally chose Bahrain nationality in 2005.
“We chose Bahrain because we knew some people living in Qatar, also athletes, who told us that Bahrain is a good place to be in,” I remember Maryam telling Bahrain TV soon after becoming a Bahraini citizen.
I am purposely recounting this story here… because there is no need to hide it anymore. Maryam is representing Bahrain legally after fulfilling all the IAAF rules and regulations, just like many other sports personalities around the world. And Maryam is laughing all the way to the tape, unlike others who have failed to fulfill their promises in their adopted countries.
The most famous example in the latter category is cricketer Graeme Hick, who coincidentally scored this 40,000th first-class run on Sundayplaying for Worcestershire in the English County Championship.
If you remember, England lovingly nursed and nourished Zimbabwe-born Hick as he completed formalities to switch alliance in the late 80s. But as a Test batsmen for England, Hick was a major disappointment. He just could not repeat his prolific county success at international level and remains an enigma to this day.
By contrast the 22-year-old Maryam has done more than enough to justify Bahrain’s faith in her. She made her mark winning the 3000m gold in Oslo in 2005, and since then has won three major gold medals in 1,500m for Bahrain apart from the golden double (800 and 1,500) at the Asian Games in Doha last year and a series of other honours around Europe in events ranging form 800m to cross country championships and half marathons.
But her sensational international exploits kicked an internal storm as well when a Bahraini MP raised objections to her dress code.
Maryam has overcome it with a change of sponsorship, and is now all set to go for gold at the World Athletics Championship to be held in Osaka, Japan, from August 25 to September 2.
Clocking the best time (4:22.34) of the year for the mile in Geneva earlier last week and winning the 1,500m with a time of 4:01.44 on Friday in Oslo should boost Maryam’s confidence further.
But the road ahead is still tough as she is way behind the year’s best time of 4:00.48 (set by Gelete Burkha of Ethiopia in Eugene, June 10, 2007).
The moot question is can Maryam break the barrier and make a mark at the world level. Rashid Ramzi did it at the 2005 World Athletics Championship in Helsinki winning a golden double, but many other leading Bahraini sports figures have stumbled outside the GCC and Asian circuit. Snooker champion Subah himself is a prime example.
Maryam too failed in her bid for world glory at the 2005 Helsinki Championships, finishing fifth in the 1,500m with a time of 4:02.49 against the winning time of 4:00.35 (Tomashova Tatyana of Russia).
Since then Maryam has broken the four-minute barrier with a personal best of 3:56.79 which again is below the world and Asian record of 3:50.46 set by China’s Yunxia Qu way back in 1993.
Maryam, however, has expressed confidence of winning in Osaka. She looks in the best shape among the present lot of 1,500m runners and is joint No 2 in the world. Let’s hope to see her as No 1 in Osaka.
On June 11, 38 prominent opposition leaders in Ethiopia were found guilty of multiple capital crimes, including treason and “outrages against the constitution.”The developments were the latest outrage in Africa’s third most populous nation. Since contested elections in May 2005 resulted in surprisingly strong showings by opposition parties, hundreds of opposition political leaders, students, lawyers and others have been killed or arrested.
The most recent convictions and the overall human-rights crackdown since the 2005 elections have been condemned by worldwide human-rights groups (Reporters without Borders recently ranked Ethiopia second worst on the African continent for press freedoms behind Eritrea). But that’s been largely overshadowed in major U.S. media more focused on Ethiopia’s military intervention in Somalia against the Islamic Union of Courts—with U.S. militarysupport.
More than 8,500 miles away in Portland, 54-year-old Lulit Mesfin is among the leaders in the fight in America to free the prisoners in her native country and sanction the Ethiopian regime for its abuses. In recent weeks, she has made some headway.
Mesfin, who came to America in 1972 to study in Los Angeles, is secretary of the 10-member Ethiopian-American Council of Portland. She is one of the leading Ethiopian-American activists fighting for democratic rule in her home country of 77 million people.
Days after the June 11 convictions, Mesfin successfully lobbied U.S. Reps. David Wu and Earl Blumenauer (both D-Ore.) to be among the half-dozen co-sponsors of HR 2003. The resolution calls for the release of the political prisoners, conditions U.S. foreign policy on Ethiopia to improvements in human rights, and directly sanctions human-rights abusers there.
Mesfin’s influence is also felt in Salem. Earlier this month, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed off on a similar Ethiopia-human rights resolution passed by the House and Senate. Mesfin testified at two hearings on “Joint Memorial 3,” saying of the resolution, “If President Bush considers democracy is good for Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia and Ukraine, it ought to be good for Ethiopia as well.”
Oregon becomes the second state along with Massachusetts to pass Ethiopia-related human-rights resolutions.
Although the actions of the Oregon Legislature or even the U.S. Congress may not mean anything to Ethiopia’s leaders, Mesfin says it’s important to agitate for such actions because it “gives hope to Ethiopian citizens and shows the [Zenawi] government that people are watching.”
And it certainly gives hope to Hiwot Nega, an Ethiopian living in New York, that at least somebody in the United States is paying attention. Her brother, Dr. Berhanu Nega, one of the most popular opposition leaders in Ethiopia, was elected mayor of the nation’s capital city, Addis Ababa, in 2005—and among those subsequently arrested en masse.
He is one of the 38 who now face a possible death sentence.
“My family, here and those inside Ethiopia, is indebted to Lulit for her work,” Nega says. “We hope it leads to a more free society—it only can come from people like Lulit.”
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – More than a dozen gunmen attacked two police bases in Mogadishu early Wednesday with rocket-propelled grenades, sparking fire fights that killed at least two people, witnesses and police said.
The attacks came just hours after a land mine exploded Tuesday night, prompting another gunbattle that witnesses said killed eight people.
A government spokesman said he had heard about the civilian deaths but he declined to comment.
Insurgents, along with clan militiamen, have been battling government and allied Ethiopian forces since they drove an Islamic movement, known as the Council of Islamic Courts, from Mogadishu six months ago. More than 1,000 civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
Wednesday’s attacks started around midnight in southern Mogadishu’s Tribunka Square.
“About 15 men armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns fired RPGs at the base before a heavy exchange of gunfire,” said Gacal Yusuf, a night watchman at a nearby house.
Regional police commissioner Ali Said said a police officer was killed in the attack.
The second attack was around the same time in northern Mogadishu, and a civilian was killed, police said.
“They attacked us and we fended them off,” police officer Mohamed Omar said. “A civilian was caught in the crossfire.”
Tuesday’s land mine attack was believed to have targeted an Ethiopian convoy, police and witnesses said.
Abdishakur Abdi Rahman, who was driving a bus that was passing as the blast went off, said the Ethiopians opened fire on his vehicle after the blast.
“The explosion occurred as the Ethiopians were passing us, then they opened fire on us,” he said. “Two passengers were killed and my conductor was wounded.”
Haji Mohamud Igaal told the AP that his three teenage relatives and three others also were killed.
The account could not be confirmed. The Woyanne troops do not talk to the press.
Somali government spokesman Abdi Haji Goobdoon said: “I heard about the land mine targeting the Ethiopians and the civilian casualties but I cannot comment.”
Witnesses in Somalia’s capital say Ethiopian [Woyanne] troops shot and killed at least eight people late Tuesday, following a roadside bomb attack.
The witnesses say the bomb hit a [Woyanne] military convoy, damaging a truck and causing an unknown number of casualties.
They say after the blast, [Woyanne] troops opened fire on a minibus, killing two passengers, and shot several youths in the area, including three brothers.
Attacks on Somali government officials and their [Woyanne] allies have increased in recent weeks despite a government claim of victory over Islamist insurgents in late April.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.
On June 11, 38 prominent opposition leaders in Ethiopia were found guilty of multiple capital crimes, including treason and “outrages against the constitution.”The developments were the latest outrage in Africa’s third most populous nation. Since contested elections in May 2005 resulted in surprisingly strong showings by opposition parties, hundreds of opposition political leaders, students, lawyers and others have been killed or arrested.