Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Response to References made about Ginbot 7 in the Report of the Monitoring Group of Somalia and Eritrea (here after SEMG), Pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 2111 (2013).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEMORANDUM
TO: The United Nations Security Council Sanctions Committee
FROM: Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice, Freedom and Democracy.
DATE: October 27, 2014
SUBJECT: Response to References made about Ginbot 7 in the Report of the Monitoring Group of Somalia and Eritrea (here after SEMG), Pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 2111 (2013).
Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice, Freedom and Democracy expresses its high regards to The United Nations Security Counciland would like to use this opportunity and bring to the attention its reservations regarding some references made about it in SEMG report of October 13, 2014.

1. The SEMG report states that “Ginbot 7 is a banned opposition group”. We would like to call the attention of the International Community to the infamous “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation” promulgated by the TPLF/EPRDF regime of Ethiopia with the aim of stifling political dissent. The dictatorial regime has used this proclamation as an instrument to label and criminalize Ginbot 7, as well as other political opposition organizations, human rights advocacy groups, civil society, journalists and bloggers inside and outside of Ethiopia.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Ana Gomez faults the British on Andargachew Tsige case

Member of the European Parliament Ana Gomez blamed London for being soft on Ethiopia and, in particular, for the extradition of British national Andargachew Tsege.Ana-Gomez-European-parliament_thumb
The MP made the remarks in an EU Parliament subcommittee hearing that focused on Andargachew Tsege, who was second-in-command of the rebel group Ginbot 7. The man was detained on June 23 at Sana’a international airport, Yemen, when he was transiting to Eritrea, and subsequently extradited to Ethiopia.
Andargachew’s detention became public knowledge after a week, when his group issued a statement. Another week passed before Ethiopia confirmedthat the Yemenis extradited him, while the Yemeni are silent to date.
During the two weeks of information black-out the British claimed that they were “press[ing] the Yemeni authorities at senior levels to establish [Andargachew's] whereabouts”.
It was on July 8, the same day that Ethiopia confirmed to have the man in custody, Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed the extradition.
Ms. Gomez, however, is of the opinion that the British had been feigning ignorance in those

Saturday, October 4, 2014

4.4 billion people around the world still don’t have Internet. Here’s where they live

An exhaustive new study by McKinsey & Company (really, it’s 120 pages long) about the barriers to Internet adoption around the world illuminates a rather surprising reality: 4.4 billion people scattered across the globe, including 3.2 billion living in only 20 countries, still aren’t connected to the Internet.
no internet ethiopia
The sheer number of people unconnected in some countries is staggering. India is home to nearly a quarter of the world’s offline population; China houses more than 730 million; Indonesia 210 million; Bangladesh almost 150 million; and Brazil nearly 100 million. Even in the United States, 50 million people don’t use the Internet (though, as my colleague Caitlin Dewey points out, many of those who are offline in the United States are offline by choice).
But adjusting for size, and instead looking at the percentage of people in certain countries that still aren’t connected to Internet, shows that quite a few places have very little internet penetration at all. In Myanmar, 99.5 percent of the population is offline; in Ethiopia, almost 98 percent; in Tanzania, more than 95 percent; and in the Democratic