Silencing the Zone9 by hook or crook

May 20, 2014

by Hindessa Abdul

It has been over three weeks since close to a dozen journalists and bloggers were arrested, most of whom members of the blogging collective known as Zone 9. Their site, hosted in Google’s Blogger platform, was launched two years ago with a catching motto “We blog because we care.” They coined the name after a visit to the Zone 8 of the Kaliti prison, where a fellow journalist, Reeyot Alemu, is serving a five year sentence. Zone 9 is a metaphor to say the rest of the populace is also in jail but in a different cell block. No surprises, their page was blocked within weeks of its launch.

Abel Wabela, Asmamaw W/Giorigis, Atnaf Berhane, Befekadu Hailu, Edom Kassaye, Mahlet Fantahun, Natnael Feleke, Tesfalem Weldyes, Zelalem Kebret have been locked up in the notorious Maekelawi in the north of Addis, where the tradition of torture is well alive and kicking.The bloggers were public servants,university professors,information technology professionals, full time journalists so on and so forth.

As it has become absurdly the norm, police had detained then started to investigate the alleged crimes, dashing the hopes of a speedy trial. So far the broad allegations are: working with a foreign organization that claim to be human rights group; conspiring to incite violence via the social media. An advisor to the Prime Minister put it as “criminal activities” without delving into specifics. Police have requested more time to investigate. The courts have no problem granting the wishes of the police at the expense of the detainees.

Some papers that came out in the last couple of days said, weeks after the arrest nobody knows the reason for their detention. However piecing together the words of police and close associates of the ruling party , there are clues to indicate where this thing is going to end up.

The dots

At the beginning of April, security officials detained Patrick Mutahi, a Kenyan national and a staff of Article 19 – a London based rights group working for the defense of freedom of expression — at the Bole International Airport. His earlier visits to the country (said to be five times) have been closely monitored.

Ironically Patrick’s travel to Ethiopia was related to a training on security and safety. Talking of safety, media watchdog groups train journalists in various skills. In recent years, with governments filtering the web, the subject of circumnavigating censorship; concealing the location from where blogs are posted have gained traction. Back in the early days of Internet filtering, the Paris based Reporters without Borders produced a famous manual called Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-dissidents to help protect journalists in otherwise unfriendly political systems.

While Patrick was deported back to his country after a day in custody, his cell phone was confiscated, leaving behind a trove of information.

Enter HRW

In March of this year Human Rights Watch published a report on the state of surveillance in Ethiopia. The 100 page report entitled: ‘They Know Everything We Do: Telecom and Internet Surveillance in Ethiopia’ explains how security officials willy-nilly eavesdrop on the phone conversation of citizens. Here is a witness telling his encounter in the report:

“After some time I got arrested and detained. They had a list of people I had spoken with. They said to me, “You called person x and you spoke about y.” They showed me the list—there were three pages of contacts—it had the time and date, phone number, my name, and the name of the person I was talking with. “All your activities are monitored with government. We even record your voice so you cannot deny. We even know you sent an email to an OLF [Oromo Liberation Front] member.” I said nothing.”

Hence, the call log in Patrick’s phone will reveal all the individuals he had contacted. No matter what the conversations, it would be construed in a way that justifies the government’s paranoia.

TPLF insiders

A day after the detention of most of the suspects, Mimi Sebhatu, a close confidant of the Meles-Azeb family went on to her radio station and said the suspects had contact with Article 19. Mimi may have an inside knowledge not least because of her association with the inner circle as to her family’s history in the lucrative security business in the country.

In the closed court appearance police told the judges that some of the suspects travelled to Kenya and have received money and training from a human rights group. Police stopped short of mentioning who the rights group was.

TPLF run online media in North America are having a field day attacking Article 19 and the bloggers. They call the group “a neo-liberal extremist organization for hire, created for the sole reason of overthrowing democratically elected governments.” And the bloggers are guilty even before they are formally charged. “It’s a criminal act to make Addis Ababa turn into Ukraine’s Kiev for the sake of money, by working with the likes of ‘Article 19’ Eritrea and Egypt,” opined one.

So there should be no doubt as to what the charges will be associated with. The insiders have told us in no uncertain terms that it is all about Article 19. We, surly, will stay tuned.