{"id":10197,"date":"2016-04-12T13:24:27","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T17:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=10197"},"modified":"2016-04-12T13:24:27","modified_gmt":"2016-04-12T17:24:27","slug":"ethiopia-denies-restricting-internet-access-to-oromia-region-over-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/10197","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia Denies Restricting Internet Access to Oromia Region Over Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ethiopia,<\/a>Ethiopia has denied claims that the government deliberately cut Internet access to the Oromia region which has been affected by months of bloody protests.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg<\/a> reported that for over a month, people in Oromia and the surrounding regions have not been able to access Internet messaging applications such as Twitter, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

“All are not working here for more than one month,” Ambo University lecturer Seyoum Teshome said. “The blackout is targeted at mobile data connections.”<\/p>\n

Reports also indicate that people in Hawassa, a city located in the southern region of Ethiopia, have also not been able to access the above-mentioned applications for more than a month.<\/p>\n

Ethiopians rely on state-owned Ethio Telecom for access to the Internet.<\/p>\n

There have been reports<\/a> that the government of Ethiopia has acquired technology to control Internet messaging applications.<\/p>\n

“Pulling the plug in social media is a predictable attempt to cut the flow of news and information about the Oromo protests,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy director for Africa at Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n

However, the Ethiopian government has denied claims of an intentional plan to restrict people in Oromia regions from accessing the Internet.<\/p>\n

Government spokesman Getachew Reda said on Monday that the cause of the Internet failure in these areas is currently being investigated. “We have not yet found any explanation,” Reda said.<\/p>\n

The protests in Oromia, the largest region in Ethiopia, began last November over a controversial government expansion plan. Hundreds have lost their lives<\/a> in the waves of protests, which the government says has been high-jacked by forces looking to destabilize Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

Photo: AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethiopia has denied claims that the government deliberately cut Internet access to the Oromia region which has been affected by months of bloody protests. Bloomberg reported that for over a month, people in Oromia and the surrounding regions have not…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,2860,409,1],"tags":[451,4967,2700,4742,4743],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10197"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10199,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10197\/revisions\/10199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}