Month: July 2021

Ethiopian police have confirmed the arrest of hundreds of ethnic Tigrayans in the capital Addis Ababa in recent weeks. The police said they were supporting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which authorities banned after the Tigray conflict broke out in November. But rights group Amnesty International says dozens were detained because of their ethnicity.

Addis Ababa Police Commissioner Getu Argaw confirmed on Saturday that authorities had arrested over 300 Tigrayans.

But speaking on the state-run Ethiopian Broadcast Corporation, Getu denied the Tigrayans were arrested because of their ethnicity.

Getu said the arrests were made after thorough investigations found the suspects were supporting the TPLF, which authorities banned as a terrorist group in May over the conflict in Tigray region.

Getu said their arrests targeted only individuals who were supporting the ousted terrorist group. The arrests were not due to their ethnicity, said Getu, adding that suspects from other ethnic groups who were involved in supporting that terrorist group were also arrested. 

Getu said illegal weapons and ammunition were seized from some of the suspects.

He was responding to a call Friday by rights group Amnesty International for Ethiopian authorities to end arbitrary detentions of Tigrayans without due process.

Amnesty said the sweeping arrests appeared to be ethnically motivated.

The rights group said while some of those arrested were released on bail, while hundreds of others were still being detained and their relatives kept in the dark.

Fisseha Tekle is Amnesty International’s human rights researcher for Ethiopia.

Tekle told VOA the families of those arrested do not know where they are being kept, they have not appeared in court, and this should stop. If they are involved in criminal activities they should appear before court, said Tekle, and their family should have the right to visit them, and they should also get an attorney.

The arrests come as the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region appears to be expanding.

A spokesman for neighboring Afar region on Monday said Tigrayan fighters attacked Afar forces on Saturday and that clashes continued over the weekend.

The TPLF has also vowed to regain territory seized by Amhara forces loyal to the federal government.

The conflict dates back to last November, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed deployed government forces to oust the TPLF from power in Tigray.

Ethiopian authorities announced a unilateral ceasefire in Tigray on June 28 as Tigrayan forces re-took the regional capital, Mekelle, from federal troops.

But with each passing day, it looks less likely the cease-fire is going to hold.

Some  information for this report came from Reuters.
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The United States and other countries are accusing China’s Ministry of State Security of using criminal contract hackers to conduct unsanctioned cyber operations globally, from which the hackers personally profit.

The activities include ransomware operations against private companies that are forced to pay millions in ransom demands to regain access to their data, according to U.S. officials.

The United States, along with NATO, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, on Monday specifically blamed China for the cyberattack in March that affected tens of thousands of organizations via Microsoft Exchange servers.

This was a type of zero-day hack where a vulnerability is known to software vendors, but they do not yet have a patch in place to fix the flaw.

“The U.S. government has raised its concerns about both this incident and China’s broader malicious cyber activity with senior Chinese government officials, making clear that these actions threaten security competence and stability in cyberspace,” a senior administration official told reporters on a call Sunday evening ahead of the announcement.

The use by China’s civilian intelligence agency of criminal contract hackers was “really eye-opening and surprising for us,” the official said.

Also significant is that the state security ministry is using those hackers to “conduct unsanctioned cyber operations globally, including for their own personal profit,” according to the senior U.S. official.

China has consistently denied being involved in such activities. 

Lu Kang, a foreign ministry spokesman, was asked in mid-March about allegations made by four private security firms who were investigating ransomware attacks. The firms blamed an advanced threat group from China for the sophisticated network intrusions. 

Lu replied that if such allegations were seriously made with reliable proof, then Beijing would take it seriously, but it did not have time to respond to “rumors and speculation.” 

The details released Monday morning in Washington and in allied capitals are seen as an attempt to give China’s government the details it requested. 

Specifically, the National Security Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a joint advisory issued Monday, said they “have observed increasingly sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored cyber activity targeting U.S. political, economic, military, educational, and CI (critical infrastructure) personnel and organizations.”

“This is really an unprecedented group of allies and partners holding China accountable,” the senior U.S. official said in the call with reporters. 

The U.S. agencies said “Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors consistently scan target networks for critical and high vulnerabilities within days of the vulnerability’s public disclosure” and use “a full array of tactics and techniques to exploit computer networks of interest worldwide and to acquire sensitive intellectual property, economic, political and military information.”

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has been vocal about a series of ransomware and other attacks blamed on groups operating in Russia, but it has not directly linked those activities to the Russian government.

In a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva last month, Biden threatened to take action against Moscow if cyber criminals continued to operate inside Russia unhindered.
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The leader of the Belarusian opposition, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, is on her first official tour of the United States. Her in-person talks with high-ranking U.S. officials will be closely watched not only in Belarus, but also in Moscow, which views its eastern neighbor as part of its “sphere of influence.” VOA’s Igor Tsikhanenka sat down for an exclusive interview with Tsikhanouskaya in Washington.

Produced by: Igor Tsikhanenka, Mary Cieslak  
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Tens of thousands of vaccinated Muslim pilgrims circled Islam’s holiest site in Mecca on Sunday but remained socially distanced and wore masks as the coronavirus takes its toll on the hajj for a second year running.

The hajj pilgrimage, which once drew about 2.5 million Muslims from all walks of life around the globe, is now almost unrecognizable. It is being scaled back for the second year in a row because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The pared-down hajj prevents Muslims from outside Saudi Arabia from fulfilling an Islamic obligation and causes financial losses to Saudi Arabia, which in pre-pandemic years took in billions of dollars as the custodian of the holy sites.

The Islamic pilgrimage lasts about five days, but traditionally Muslims begin arriving in Mecca weeks ahead of time. The hajj concludes with the Eid al-Adha celebration, marked by the distribution of meat to the poor around the world.  

This year, 60,000 vaccinated citizens or residents of Saudi Arabia have been allowed to perform the hajj because of continued concerns around the spread of the coronavirus. Last year’s largely symbolic hajj saw fewer than 1,000 people from within the kingdom taking part.

It’s unclear when Saudi Arabia will play host again to millions of Muslims. The kingdom has no clear standard for a vaccine passport, vaccination rates are uneven in different countries and new variants of the virus are threatening the progress made in some nations.

The kingdom’s Al Saud rulers have staked their legitimacy in large part on their custodianship of hajj sites, giving them a unique and powerful platform among Muslims around the world. The kingdom has gone to great lengths to ensure the annual hajj continues uninterrupted, despite changes caused by the pandemic.  

Robots have been deployed to spray disinfectant around the cube-shaped Kaaba’s busiest walkways. The Kaaba is where the hajj pilgrimage begins and ends for most.  

Saudi Arabia is also testing a smart bracelet this year in collaboration with the government’s artificial intelligence authority. The touchscreen bracelet resembles the Apple Watch and includes information on the hajj, a pilgrim’s oxygen levels and vaccine data and has an emergency feature to call for help.  

International media outlets already present in the kingdom were permitted to cover the hajj from Mecca this year, but others were not granted permission to fly in as had been customary before the pandemic.

Cleaners are sanitizing the vast white marble spaces of the Grand Mosque that houses the Kaaba several times a day.  

“We are sanitizing the floor and using disinfection liquids while cleaning it two or three times during (each) shift,” said Olis Gul, a cleaner who said he has been working in Mecca for 20 years.  

The hajj is one of Islam’s most important requirements to be performed once in a lifetime. It follows a route the Prophet Muhammad walked nearly 1,400 years ago and is believed to ultimately trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail, or Abraham and Ishmael as they are named in the Bible.

The hajj is seen as a chance to wipe clean past sins and bring about greater unity among Muslims. The communal feeling of more than 2 million people from around the world — Shiite, Sunni and other Muslim sects — praying together, eating together and repenting together has long been part of what makes hajj both a challenging and a transformative experience.

There are questions around whether the hajj will be able to again draw such large numbers of faithful, with male pilgrims forming a sea of white in white terrycloth garments worn to symbolize the equality of mankind before God and women forgoing makeup and perfume to focus inwardly.  

Like last year, pilgrims will be drinking water from the holy Zamzam well in plastic bottles. They were given umbrellas to shield them from the sun. They have to carry their own prayer rugs and follow a strict schedule via a mobile app that informs them when they can be in certain areas to avoid crowding.  

“I hope this is a successful hajj season,” said Egyptian pilgrim Aly Aboulnaga, a university lecturer in Saudi Arabia. “We ask God to accept everyone’s hajj and for the area to be open to greater numbers of pilgrims and for a return to an even better situation than before.”

The kingdom, with a population of more than 30 million, has reported over half a million cases of the coronavirus, including more than 8,000 deaths. It has administered nearly 20 million doses of coronavirus vaccines, according to the World Health Organization. 
 
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Syrian regime artillery fire killed seven civilians including three children in the country’s last major rebel bastion of Idlib, a Britain-based war monitor said Sunday.  

The shelling hit in the village of Ehsim late Saturday, in the south of the Idlib region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.   

A family member told AFP that visitors had gathered to congratulate a male relative on getting married when the shelling struck their home.   

Earlier in the day, rockets fired by pro-government forces killed six civilians in the village of Sarja, including three children and a rescue worker, meaning at least 13 were killed in total in Idlib on Saturday.   

The shelling in Ehsim came hours after President Bashar al-Assad took the oath of office for a fourth term, pledging to “liberate” areas still beyond government control.   

The deaths are the latest violations of a ceasefire deal agreed by rebel backer Turkey and government ally Russia in March 2020 to stem a regime offensive on the jihadist-dominated stronghold.   

An AFP photographer in Ehsim saw rescue workers under floodlights cut through a collapsed ceiling to retrieve the body of a woman.   

Bundling her body up in a blanket, they then gently lowered it down a ladder and carried it into an ambulance.   

The Observatory said she was among four women and three girls killed in the bombardment.   

Bordering Turkey, the northwestern Idlib region is home to around three million people, more than half displaced by fighting in other parts of war-torn Syria. Many rely on humanitarian aid to survive.   

The region is dominated by Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, but other rebel groups are also present.   

Syria’s war has killed around half a million people and forced millions more to flee their homes since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.   
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For the next six months Slovenia will preside over the European Union, a body dedicated to the highest democratic values. But critics say that when it comes to upholding press freedom ideals, Slovenia is not up to scratch.

Two separate organizations, including the Council of Europe, released findings on what they say is a deteriorating situation for journalism.

In a memorandum on freedom of expression and media freedom in Slovenia, the COE’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatovic, said she was concerned about steps by authorities “that risk undermining the ability of critical voices to speak freely.”

The COE platform that documents threats and harassment of media registered 13 violations in the past year, compared with one the year before, the report said. The memo also cited physical attacks on journalists; a rise in hate speech, both online and from political representatives; polarization of public debate; and stigmatization of independent voices.

The Media Freedom Rapid Response group, a Europe-wide coalition that monitors violations, reported similar issues based on findings from conversations with journalists, academics and government officials.

“Over the last 14 months, independent journalism has come under sustained pressure on multiple fronts from the coalition government led by the Slovenian Democratic Party,” the MFRR said.

Slovenia’s center-right government dismissed the criticisms as “fake news.”

Prime Minister Janez Jansa responded to the COE report on Twitter, saying Mijatovic is “part of fake news network” and “spreading lies.”

Many journalists and academics who spoke with VOA believe that a hostile environment and uneven access to government officials and information is hurting audiences and presenting a threat to journalists.

Although most agree that conditions are better in Slovenia than in fellow EU member states Poland and Hungary – where media are under a significant clampdown – they say the country is declining along a similar path.

Renate Schroeder, director at the European Federation of Journalists, which contributed to the MFRR report, told VOA: “Is Slovenia becoming another Poland or Hungary? … No, not yet.”

There appears to be a drive to follow the same pattern as Hungary, “slowly but surely, and that I find very, very frightening,” added Schroeder, whose organization was involved in the MFRR research.

Findings that Schroeder said surprised her included the government’s decision to stop financing the national news agency STA, which receives about half its income from the state budget; polarization among journalists; and smear campaigns against critical journalists, which she says in some cases are led by the prime minister.

“This attack on the press agency is unprecedented, we do not have that in other countries,” said Schroeder. She added that Jansa is the first prime minister in Europe who “is doing smear campaigns …  in such a way by using Twitter.”

Some journalists have said Slovenia’s media are laboring under the harshest conditions since independence in 1991.

“The media situation has worsened very much under this government. I have been a journalist for 27 years, and we have never seen something like that,” Evgenija Carl, a prominent journalist with the state broadcaster RTV Slovenia, told VOA.

“We can see that many journalists are scared. They do reporting but are afraid to voice their own opinions. They have stopped participating in the social media for fear that as soon as they write something critical about the government they will be attacked,” Carl added.

Online attacks can be prompted by coverage of politics and alleged corruption, or even the amount of space given to specific articles. Jansa in October described STA as a “national shame” on Twitter after it gave more space to an article on a rapper’s album than Jansa’s meeting with his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orban.

Carl is one of two female journalists whom Jansa called “prostitutes” on Twitter in 2016, while leader of the opposition. The journalists filed a defamation suit against him.

Since 2018, Carl said, she has received three envelopes containing white powder and threatening letters mentioning the lawsuit.

Commissioner Mijatovic said in her memorandum that anonymous threats online and via phone, email and in letters, as well as in graffiti sprayed on media buildings, leave some journalists fearful for their safety.

Mijatovic’s office told VOA the commissioner could not comment on relations between the EU and the Slovenian presidency, but that she stood fully by her assessments and was “hopeful the government will use it in order to improve the situation related to media freedom and freedom of expression.”

In a response to the Council of Europe’s memorandum, the Ministries of Justice, Interior and Culture said that the current climate “cannot in any way be considered as an attack on the freedom and independence of journalistic work but represents a normal democratic process.”

Their response stressed that journalists should “not be exempt from criticism, particularly when they [sic] reports are untrue and they deliberately spread lies.”

The statement cited a potential “erosion of journalistic freedoms exclusively in private media,” and said owners of large media companies have an influence on journalists’ reporting.

Government officials have stated previously they believe large media companies are overly critical of the government.

The Ministry of Culture told VOA in a written statement that it explained to MFRR why the group’s findings were “a result of incorrect information,” but did not elaborate.

Some experts in Slovenia also believe that the COE and MFRR reports are not credible.

Matevz Tomsic, a professor of sociology and the president of the Association of Journalists and Publicists – one of three large journalist groups in the country – told VOA he was interviewed for both reports but that his views were not represented.

MFRR lists Tomsic’s name among those interviewed. The Council of Europe did not immediately confirm whether it had interviewed the academic.

“The media freedom has not worsened under the current government. The situation is similar to what it was under previous governments,” Tomsic said.

“It is possible that media which are favorable to the government get more advertising of state firms, but that has also been happening under the previous governments and is not unique to this one,” he added.

Schroeder, of the European Federation of Journalists, believes the EU should do more to prevent attacks on media freedom in its member states. But, she added, “legally speaking that is very difficult as they do not have the means, the tools.”
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Ethiopia’s media regulator is warning foreign news outlets that publishing specific references that it says mischaracterize the country’s war-torn northern Tigray region will be met with legal consequences.

“In reviewing and monitoring the news reports, the Ethiopian Media Authority [EMA] has found that some foreign media are repeatedly characterizing [the Tigray People’s Liberation Front – TPLF] as a national army by calling it the Tigray Defense Force or TDF,” said an official statement issued on agency letterhead Friday that was sent to VOA.

An earlier warning had been sent to at least two foreign media outlets.

The statement sent to VOA, signed by agency chief Yonatan Tesfaye Regassa, comes one day after the EMA revoked the license of the Addis Standard’s publisher, accusing the monthly magazine and news website of advancing the agenda of a “terrorist group,” without providing more specifics.

That “terrorist group” was thought to be the TPLF, which Addis Ababa has been battling in Ethiopia’s north since November, Reuters has reported. The TPLF is a former member of the coalition that ruled Ethiopia for more than 30 years. In May, Ethiopia designated the group a terrorist organization.

EMA officials on Thursday said they revoked the license over complaints that the Addis Standard was advancing “the terrorist group’s agency,” including by “legitimizing a terrorist group as a ‘Defense Force.’” The suspension drew outrage from global press freedom watchdogs, who’ve accused the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of taking an increasingly hard line against domestic news outlets covering the conflict.

‘A grave violation of Ethiopian law’

Friday’s warning directed at foreign outlets appeared to escalate TPLF coverage restrictions.

“Bearing in mind that Tigray is one of the federation units of Ethiopia that cannot have a force with that nomenclature [such as ‘Defense Force’] and as the country’s parliament has labeled TPLF a terrorist organization, the [EMA hereby] informs that use of such terminology violates Ethiopia’s territorial integrity, national interest and security,” Friday’s statement said.

Warning all foreign media against “using such characterization,” the statement said, “further use of the same terminology by any foreign media will be a grave violation of Ethiopian law, which will lead to stringent measures.”

When Prime Minister Ahmed came to power in 2018, it appeared that Ethiopia would shake off its reputation as having a repressive media environment, but conditions for journalists have worsened in the face of new political challenges, according to reports by multiple press freedom advocates.

Friday’s new coverage guidelines for the Tigray conflict come two weeks after police in the capital arrested about 20 journalists and staff from the independent broadcaster Awlo Media Center and YouTube-based broadcaster Ethio-Forum, both of which have been critical of the government.

The state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission on Sunday said federal police had since released three of the journalists. 
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