London, U.K. — The detention on August 26 of the editor of one of Ethiopia’s last independent publications is a worrying signal that the government intends to carry on targeting dissent, Amnesty International said on August 27.

Temesgen Desalegn, editor of Feteh newspaper, faces a number of criminal charges based on articles he has written or published criticizing the government and calling on Ethiopia’s youth to peacefully protest against government repression.

He is the first journalist to be detained since the announcement on Monday of the death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, under whose leadership the government regularly targeted critical journalists.

“It’s business as usual in Ethiopia. Temesgen Desalegn has been charged for exercising his right to freedom of expression in advocating for peaceful protests to take place, among other criticisms of the government,” said Claire Beston, Amnesty International’s Ethiopia researcher.

“Meles’ leadership was characterized by cracking down heavily on any dissent and dismantling the independent media, and yesterday’s events show that nothing has changed.”

Four charges were filed against Temesgen and his publishing house, Mastewal Printing and Advertising, including ‘Provocation and Preparation’ to incite the youth to overthrow the constitutional order, ‘Inciting the public through false rumours’ and ‘Attacks against the state’ through defaming the government.

The charges relate to various articles published in Feteh between July 2011 and March 2012.

Articles cited in the charge sheet as evidence discuss subjects including how Ethiopians should be angry about the repressive practices of the government, the role of the youth as agents of change and their role in popular uprisings in Ethiopia and abroad and that lessons should be learnt from the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

Temesgen first learnt that there were charges against him on state radio Fana FM.

He was later summoned by federal police in early August, who informed him of the charges. At a court appearance on 23 August, the judge denied bail and Temesgen was sent to Kaliti prison on the outskirts of the capital Addis Ababa.

Feteh and Temesgen have fallen foul of the authorities on multiple occasions, and the editor has had numerous complaints and some criminal charges filed against him in the past. These have resulted in several incidents of temporary detention, police questioning, bail costs, fines or the dropping of charges.

In June 2011 Feteh columnist Reyot Alemu was arrested after writing articles critical of the government and reporting on calls for peaceful protests to take place. She was subsequently charged with terrorism offences and, in January 2012, was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment. Her sentence was reduced to five years on appeal.

In late April 2012 Temesgen was fined 2,000 Ethiopian Birr (about US$115) after the Addis Ababa High Court ruled that he was guilty of contempt of court for “biased coverage” of the trial of journalist Eskinder Nega, opposition members and other government critics. The finding of “biased coverage” was based on Feteh’s publication of statements from some of the defendants in the trial.

On 20 July, Ethiopian authorities blocked Feteh’s distribution and impounded 30,000 copies of the paper stating that its front cover – featuring stories about Muslim protests and the Prime Minister’s health – posed a threat to national security.
“The nature of the latest charges against Temesgen Desalegn, and the content of the articles cited as evidence, exposes not only the continuing intolerance of dissent but also the government’s fear of peaceful protests,” said Beston.

“It is clear that the authorities are very concerned about the possibility of popular uprisings in the wake of last year’s events in the Middle East and North Africa.”

The Ethiopian authorities have repeatedly taken measures to silence any suggestion that protests should or could take place. Concern about popular uprising has been behind the recent arrests and prosecutions of journalists, opposition members and protestors including those from the Muslim community recently arrested.

“The government of Ethiopia should see the succession of Meles as an opportunity to break with the past and end the practice of arresting anyone and everyone who criticizes the government,” said Beston.

“Temesgen Desalegn should be released immediately and charges against him should be dropped. The post-Meles government must begin a new era of respect for freedom of expression.”

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Paris, France – Ethiopia’s only ISP, state-owned Ethio-Telecom, has just installed a system for blocking access to the Tor network, which lets users browse anonymously and access blocked websites. At the same time, the state-owned printing presses are demanding the right to censor the newspapers they print. Reporters Without Borders is very worried by these attempts to reinforce government control of news and information.

Danger that printers will censor newspaper content

Reporters Without Borders accuses the biggest state printer, Berhanena Selam, which almost has a monopoly on newspaper and magazine printing in Ethiopia, and other state owned printers, of trying to impose political censorship on media content before publication.

In a proposed “standard contract for printing” recently circulated by state printers, they assume the right to vet and reject articles prior to printing.

“This contract could drag Ethiopia back more than two decades as regards media freedom, to the time of Mengistu’s brutal dictatorship in pre 1991 Ethiopia,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Allowing printers to control editorial content is tantamount to give them court powers. On what basis do these state-owned companies assume the right and independence to interpret the law? Does this reflect a government desire to suppress all criticism before it is voiced?”

“If this standard contract is adopted, we fear it could lead to widespread self-censorship, which is already very common, and to media subservience towards the government. Criticism, independence and media diversity would all suffer, and the vitality of Ethiopian democracy would suffer as well.”

Article 10 of the proposed contract is evocatively entitled “Declining to print content violating the law.” It says the printer has the right to refuse to print any text if he has “adequate reason” to think it breaks the law. It goes on to say that the printer reserves the right to terminate or cancel the contract at any time if he has “adequate reason” to think that the publisher “has a propensity to publish a content which entails liability.”

This article openly contravenes article 29 of the 1994 federal constitution, which guarantees press freedom and bans “censorship in any form.” Reporters Without Borders points out that only an independent and impartial judge should have the power to impose any kind of sanction or prohibition affecting media freedom.

Ethiopia’s privately-owned newspaper and magazine publishers reacted to the proposed contract by addressing a joint petition to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi urging him to recognize that it violates the constitution and to have it withdrawn. The response from a government official was to insist that it was “a strictly business-based decision” and to deny any desire to censor.

The printers are keeping up the pressure on the publishers, saying they will refuse to print any newspapers or magazines and, under an unlawful contract that is an extension of the new press law that has put liabilities on printers for print media content.

“We call on all media professionals – publishers, editors and journalists – to be brought into the process of negotiation and drafting of this printing contract,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The possibility that printers could be held liable for printed content must not be used as grounds for reintroducing prior censorship.”

As it stands, the proposed contract would add to the repressive legislative edifice that the Ethiopian government has built over the past three years. It includes the 2009 anti-terrorism law under which two journalists have been charged and sentenced to long jail terms. It is also liable to exacerbate the already poor climate between the privately-owned media and government.

Government steps up control of Internet, uses sophisticated technology

Government-owned Internet Service Provider Ethio-Telecom, the country’s only ISP, has for the past two weeks been blocking access to the Tor network, an online tool that allows users to browse anonymously and access blocked websites. To do this kind of selective blocking, Ethio-Telecom must be using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), an advanced network filtering method.

DPI is widely used by countries that are “Enemies of the Internet” such as China and Iran. Blocking access to porn sites is usually the official reason given for installing and using it, but in practice it allows governments to easily target politically sensitive websites and quickly censor any expression of opposition views.

In installing DPI and blocking access to Tor, the Ethiopian government is probably taking a first step towards installing a sophisticated filtering system that will eventually enable it to intercept emails, messages posted on social networks and Internet voice conversations using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software such as Skype.

Use of VoIP hardware and software has just been made a crime by the new Ethiopian Telecom Service legislation, which was ratified on 24 May. Anyone violating this provision could be sentenced to up 15 years in prison.

The authorities say the ban was needed on national security grounds and because VoIP posed a threat to the state’s monopoly of telephone communications.

The new law also gives the ministry of communications and information technology the power to supervise and issue licences to all privately-owned companies that import equipment used for the communication of information.

The OpenNet Initiative has already reported cases of Internet censorship in Ethiopia, including the blocking of blogs, news sites and opposition sites. So far there have been relatively few cases, above all because of the low level of Internet use in Ethiopia.

“This new law and the possibility that a Deep Packet Inspection system has been installed mark a turning point in the Ethiopian government’s control of the Internet,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We fear that DPI will be misused for surveillance purposes by a government that already subjects the political opposition and privately-owned media to a great deal of harassment.”

“We urge the Ethiopian authorities not to install this filtering system and, as we already said when The Reporter news website was blocked, we share the view of the United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, who recommended in a June 2011 report that restrictions to the flow of information online should be limited to ‘few, exceptional, and limited circumstances prescribed by international human rights law’.”

It should be noted that, a few days after spotting that access to the Tor network was being blocked in Ethiopia, the Tor Project posted a message on its blog explaining how to circumvent the blocking.

Image Courtesy of   World Economic Forum

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A team of scientists announces the discovery of a 3.4 million-year-old partial foot from the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia.  The fossil foot did not belong to “Lucy’s” species, Australopithecus afarensis, the famous early human ancestor.

Research on this new specimen indicates that more than one species of early human ancestor existed between 3 and 4 million years ago with different methods of locomotion.  The analysis will be published in the March 29, 2012 issue of the journal Nature. The partial foot was found in February 2009 in an area known as Burtele.

“The Burtele partial foot clearly shows that at 3.4 million years ago, Lucy’s species, which walked upright on two legs, was not the only hominin species living in this region of Ethiopia,” said lead author and project leader Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie, curator of physical anthropology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. “Her species co-existed with close relatives who were more adept at climbing trees, like ‘Ardi’s’ species, Ardipithecus ramidus, which lived 4.4 million years ago.”

The partial foot is the first evidence for the presence of at least two pre-human species with different modes of locomotion contemporaneously living in eastern Africa around 3.4 million years ago.  While the big toe of the foot in Lucy’s species was aligned with the other four toes for human-like bipedal walking, the Burtele foot has an opposable big toe like the earlier Ardi.

“This discovery was quite shocking,” said co-author and project co-leader Dr. Bruce Latimer of Case Western Reserve University.  “These fossil elements represent bones we’ve never seen before.

While the grasping big toe could move from side to side, there was no expansion on top of the joint that would allow for expanded range of movement required for pushing off the ground for upright walking.  This individual would have likely had a somewhat awkward gait when on the ground.”

Using the argon-argon radioactive dating method, the fossils were determined to be younger than 3.46 million years, said co-author Dr. Beverly Saylor of Case Western Reserve University.  “Nearby fossils of fish, crocodiles and turtles, and physical and chemical characteristics of sediments show the environment was a mosaic of river and delta channels adjacent to an open woodland of trees and bushes.”

Information and images at www.cmnh.org/site/burtele.aspx.

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