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Africa

Tess Conner

Last week, the government in Ethiopia approved, much to the outcry of the rights activists, a new Computer Crime Proclamation, which, according to the government, is designed to protect the state and citizens from crimes committed using computers. It is not clear if governments, especially the US and individual EU member states, which are Ethiopia’s allies, could join those who are voicing their concerns about this new bill and its implications to freedom of expression.

Kalkidan Yibeltal

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, (EHRC), a government body which was investigating killings, maiming, arrests and forced disappearances of protesters in Oromia regional state following a five month region wide civil resistance, declared that security measures taken against protesters were “proportional.”

Etana Habte, Special to Addis Standard

Part I

Throughout Africa, increasing numbers of people are fundamentally altering the power structure of urban centers, transforming the very nexus of these centers as government sites of socio-political stability, economic development and investment, into sites of demonstrations and demands for justice and socio-political change.