Ethiopian musicians scheduled to perform in the country’s upcoming New Year celebrations have canceled their performances due to the ongoing anti-government protests.<\/p>\n
About 17 musicians billed to perform on September 11, the eve of Ethiopia’s 2009 New Year celebrations, have called-off their performances via Facebook, BBC reported.<\/p>\n
The singers, who were scheduled to perform in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa and other cities, reportedly refused to perform amid the growing demonstrations and ensuing violence<\/a> in the Amhara and Oromia regions.<\/p>\n U.S. based singer Abby Lakew was among the musicians who canceled their shows to commemorate the New Year.<\/p>\n “I do not want to perform on any stage as of right now while my people are dying!!!\u201d he wrote. “I will pray for peace and I believe in one love!!! All people should be treated equally, with the same rights, dignity and human rights.”<\/p>\n The widespread demonstrations, which began in November, have led to the death and incarceration of several protesters. Human Rights Watch puts the number of causalities at around 500 people.<\/p>\n On Monday, the U.S. government expressed concerns over Ethiopian security officials using excessive force<\/a> against protesters.<\/p>\n U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said that the violence in Ethiopia is “extremely serious<\/a>.” She asked the Ethiopian government to allow peaceful protests. Power also called for an independent investigation into reports of clashes between demonstrators and security officials.<\/p>\n While Ethiopian officials say peaceful protests are constructional, they insist that the current demonstrations are “illegal” and are the workings of foreign of terrorists looking to destabilize the country.<\/p>\n [Photo by Andrew Heavens<\/a>\/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a>]<\/p>\n Ethiopian musicians scheduled to perform in the country’s upcoming New Year celebrations have canceled their performances due to the ongoing anti-government protests. About 17 musicians billed to perform on September 11, the eve of Ethiopia’s 2009 New Year celebrations, have…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":10688,"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":[44,2860,1],"tags":[4893,4967,4913,4676],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Ethiopian-Musicians-Cancel-New-Year-Eve-Shows-Over-Amhara-and-Oromia-Protests.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10686"}],"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=10686"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10689,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10686\/revisions\/10689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}