An African salute and the protests shaking a nation | DEMOCRACY WORKS
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Media attention on the protests therefore couldn’t come at a more important time. Since Lilesa’s salute and following a horrific stampede at an Oromo thanksgiving festival at the start of October, killing between 52 and 300 people (concrete figures are difficult to come by in Ethiopia) after police used teargas, rubber bullets and batons on protesters, the Ethiopian government has ordered a six month state of emergency. It has also continued to blame the violence and deaths at protests on banded opposition groups and gangs funded by Ethiopia and Eritrea, the former of which has already denied the claim and the latter of which has maintained a frosty silence. Human Rights groups however implicate the security forces in the deaths.
As a result of the state of emergency, Ethiopia is on lock down. Foreign diplomats have been banned from travelling more than 40kms outside the capital, protests in schools, universities, and other higher education institutions are forbidden, there are country-wide curfews, security services are barred from resigning, satellite TV, pro-opposition news and foreign news are banned and posting links on social media a criminal activity. In short, there is a total news black-out of anything that is not state sponsored.
On the African continent, condemnation of Ethiopia’s actions by African governments has been very quiet. However, the protests have been well covered by African media and civil society organizations particularly in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa, while protests supporting the Oromo have taken place in South Africa and Egypt.
Although it is disappointing that African governments have not spoken out, it is important that the Ethiopian diaspora, along with African and global civil society continue to call loudly for an independent investigation into the deaths and violence occurring and that wealthy Western governments continue to evaluate their support for the increasingly authoritarian Ethiopian sta
#Éthiopie #contestation #répression #violences_policière #dictature