A downward spiral for freedom of expression in Ethiopia

Internet shutdowns, content filtering, arrests of
bloggers, and online surveillance in North Africa have been headline news for
the past year and a half, but internet issues in the rest of the African continent
haven’t received quite as much press coverage. This silence is partly because
there is simply less internet penetration south of the Sahara, but there may
also be a paralyzing current of opinion whereby stories that highlight human
rights issues or a lack of democracy in the region are either dismissed as old
news or written off as paternalistic.

Ethiopia sometimes gets particularly little coverage in
Western or international media because the political situation there is not
nearly as dramatic as it is in other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The
government is nominally structured as a parliamentary democracy and it has good
relations with the United States and Europe. Still, the ruling Ethiopian
People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front tightly controls the country’s
electoral politics and media representation.

Internet censorship and content filtering are well-established
in Ethiopia. The state owns
and manages the country’s sole Internet service provider, Ethiopian
Telecommunication Corporation (Ethio-Telcom). While
Ethiopian Internet penetration is only about 1%, there is still a vibrant,
tightly-knit community of bloggers whose websites, blogs, and Facebook pages
have been blocked by the government. The blocks themselves look innocuous to
Ethiopian Internet users, because the browser will simply notify users that the
server request has timed out.

[An error-message appears when people try] to access
censored websites or use restricted search terms. It figures, then, that the
Ethiopian and Chinese governments have conducted joint workshops
on “mass media
institution” management and Internet management. Inexpensive Chinese technology
has also replaced American technology for building Ethiopian Internet
infrastructure.

EFF recently reported on a new Telecom Service Infringement Law

that includes explicit content-filtering provisions that protect “national
security.” The law criminalizes online speech that may be construed as
defamatory or terrorist, and holds the website or account owner liable even if
the speech is posted as a comment by a third party on their website. These
speech-chilling stipulations are hidden deep within a licensing bill that
would, on the surface, seem to simply clarify Ethio-Telecom’s
power to regulate Internet services such as VoIP.