{"id":7957,"date":"2014-03-24T04:22:38","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T08:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=7957"},"modified":"2014-03-24T04:22:38","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T08:22:38","slug":"ethiopia-accused-of-monitoring-dissidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/7957","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia accused of Monitoring Dissidents"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A rights group has accused the Ethiopian government of listening to and recording the phone calls of opposition journalists and activists.<\/p>\n

According to a report released on Friday by Human Rights Watch, the government monitors perceived political opponents outside and inside the country.<\/p>\n

This latest allegation follows a series of accusations by journalists and citizens against the government for reportedly spying on them.<\/p>\n

Last month, several Ethiopians residing abroad are reported to have accused their government of using sophisticated technology to hack into their computers as well as monitor their private correspondence.<\/p>\n

According to reports, a suit filed in a federal court in Washington by Ethiopian dissidents claims the government is responsible for alleged cyber-attacks and is requesting payment of damages.<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that the plaintiff requested anonymity for fear of endangering his life and that of his family.<\/p>\n

In a separate case, an Ethiopian refugee residing in London has asked the British police to probe possible hacking by FinSpy, reports indicate.<\/p>\n

Tedesse Kersmois filed a complaint requesting the investigation of Gamma Group, a British-based company that manufactures the FinFisher software.<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that Ethiopian journalists based in the United States have made similar allegations.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ethiopian officials have denied these claims.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch, in its report, claims that Chinese company, ZTE, provides most of the monitoring technology to Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

In 2012, observers alleged that Chinese authorities offered the Ethiopian government equipments that would promote political repression, such as surveillance cameras and equipment for jamming satellites.<\/p>\n

Observers have also voiced fears that China may aid Ethiopia in increasing mobile phone and internet censorship and surveillance in the future.<\/p>\n

Analysts say the government’s monopoly over the telecommunications sector and poor infrastructure has prevented the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

Consequently, Ethiopia reportedly has one of the lowest mobile phone and internet penetration rates in the African continent. This notwithstanding, Ethiopian authorities maintain a strict control system and the country remains the only nation in Sub-Saharan Africa to have adopted national internet filtering.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch further claims that numerous European companies have also offered surveillance equipments to the Ethiopian government.<\/p>\n

The group also claims that recorded phone calls are frequently played during alleged abusive interrogations.<\/p>\n

Photo by phys.org: Children with their tablet computers in Wenchi, Ethiopia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A rights group has accused the Ethiopian government of listening to and recording the phone calls of opposition journalists and activists. According to a report released on Friday by Human Rights Watch, the government monitors perceived political opponents outside and…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"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":[44,1],"tags":[2096,935,2092,2091,2103,2095,2100,4967,140,2102,2098,2114,2090,2099,2093,2097,1307,2089,147,2110,2111,2113,324,2108,2105,2109,2101,2086,2087,2106,1338,1279,2085,1103,2088,2094,1947,1689,2107,377,2112,282,1053,2104],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7957"}],"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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}