harmful speech vs free speech
and kidnapped for investigating mining
Hi there,
January 7 is Christmas Day (Gena) in Ethiopia. In light of that, I have decided to cook an Ethiopian holiday dish and I am editing this edition in between a much-needed break. I’m four hours into the one dish I’m cooking — this stuff is not for the faint of heart!
To new subscribers, welcome!
My name is Maya Misikir, and I’m a freelance reporter based in Addis Abeba. I write Sifter, this newsletter where I send out the week’s top 5 stories on human rights and news in Ethiopia.
Now, to the news.
Law: broad definitions, broad applications
Today, we revisit Ethiopia’s Hate Speech and Disinformation Prevention and Suppression Proclamation, which came to life in 2020.
Why are we talking about this now? Paradigm Initiative’s recently published 3rd edition Digital Policy Digest, which ‘documents digital rights policies and laws’, looks into it, and as we draw ever closer to Ethiopia’s general elections (June 2026), brushing up on this will be important.
The Hate Speech and Disinformation Prevention and Suppression Proclamation was, ‘one of the most debated pieces of legislation in Ethiopia’, says the author in the Digital Policy Digest.
The law was intended to counter the ‘deliberate dissemination of hate speech and disinformation’. Yet, despite the ‘legitimate aim’, there were serious concerns at the time that it would, instead, ‘restrict freedom of expression, curtail access to information, stifle the press, and silence dissenting voices’.
It gave the government the ‘authority to fine and imprison citizens for their social media activity.’ (A few days after it came into effect, the first journalist was charged).
Why these concerns? For starters, the definition of hate speech, disinformation, and even social media within the law, is broad and can be used arbitrarily.
Furthermore, the penalties in the Proclamation are not proportionate, states the digital rights organization, Access Now. Instead, they are excessive and not in line with international recommendations (like, ‘fining or incarcerating people simply for sharing alleged hate speech or disinformation, when such sharing may not even have an effect on other people’s behavior’).
Also, do people have the digital literacy to make the distinction if what they are disseminating is ‘false information’, like deepfakes?
Here's another note on the law from the Digital Policy Digest:
…the lack of clarity in implementation procedures can lead to inconsistencies and potential injustices, as the enforcement mechanisms are not well-defined, resulting in arbitrary application of the law.
The full Proclamation for your perusal, here, and the Digital Policy Digest, which also includes a look at the Zimbabwean Cyber and Data Protection Regulations of 2024, and Namibia’s SIM Card Registration and Biometric Data Collection, here.
Press freedom: closing in on mining stories
I have written updates on mining stories before; one in particular about the ‘highly organized and illicit gold rush’ in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. The scrutiny of any reporting on mining stories was evident when the editor-in-chief of The Reporter, which published that story and another one in the country’s Benishangul-Gumuz region, was taken into police custody in October.
Last week, journalists from Ethiopia’s Tigray region were kidnapped as they were ‘gathering testimonies from residents about the significant damage’ resulting from the mining activities in the area.
Here’s an excerpt from local publication, Ethio-Negari:
Three journalists from Tigray Television have reportedly been kidnapped by unidentified gunmen while investigating illegal gold mining activities in the North West Zone of the Tigray Region, Ethiopia.
Tigrai TV announced the release of the kidnapped journalists on the same day.
To better understand the security vacuum in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, take a look at an earlier post I wrote on the crisis that threatens the fragile peace and security achieved since the Pretoria peace deal in 2022.
To find out what press freedom looked like across the world in 2024, go to last week’s highlights, here.
The full story on the abducted reporters on Ethio-Negari, here, and the post from Tigrai Television on their return, here.
Earthquakes: taking measures
In October last year, there were several earthquakes registered in Ethiopia, ranging between 4.6 to 4.9 on the Richter scale otherwise considered as ‘light earthquakes’.
Just over the last week of December, 64 earthquakes were recorded in Ethiopia’s Afar region, according to a story on Ethiopia Insider. On January 3, another one was recorded, this time at a 5.5 scale, and again last Saturday, the highest recorded yet at 5.8. (earthquakes that can cause damage to buildings are at a scale between 5.5 and 6 on the Richter Scale.)
Over 20 houses and shops in Ethiopia’s Afar region have been destroyed since last week Monday, according to the story. The relocation of over 4,000 people to safer areas started a few days later.
The earthquakes are also causing volcanic eruptions.
The full series of stories on Ethiopia Insider, in Amharic, on the destroyed homes, here, on the relocation efforts, here, and on the call for support from the impacted community, here.
Infrastructure: de-escalating tensions
Last week’s update on the diplomatic breakthrough between Ethiopia and Somalia ended on an uncertain note: the question of whether Ethiopia would be included in an upcoming African Union-led peacekeeping mission in Somalia.
What has been Ethiopia’s historical role in peacekeeping in Somalia? Here’s an excerpt on that from a story on Bloomberg:
Ethiopia has been one of the main contributors to the United Nations-backed force that’s been fighting al-Qaeda-linked militants in neighboring Somalia for almost two decades. Mogadishu objected to Addis Ababa’s future participation in the mission after a yearlong dispute over Ethiopia’s offer to recognize Somaliland — a breakaway territory in northern Somalia — in return for access to a port in the semi-autonomous region.
Since last week though, there have been promising signs that Ethiopia might be included in the AUSSOM mission (African Union Support and Stabilization Mission).
One sign was the visit of the Ethiopian defense minister to Mogadishu, the first visit since ‘relations nosedived a year ago over an Ethiopian plan to build a naval base in a breakaway Somali region’, says another story on Reuters.
Go here to read the background on the initial port deal, the year-long back and forth, and the recent Ankara Declaration that has made the recent diplomatic gains possible.
The full story on Bloomberg, here, and on Reuters here.
Tigray: the Garima Gospels
This last update is on a recently published story on the Garima Gospels, from Ethiopia’s Tigray region. The Garima Gospels, are a ‘1,500 years old’ ‘brilliantly illustrated manuscripts,’ that are ‘believed to be the oldest complete examples of their type on Earth’.
They are also, ‘the earliest known translations of the testaments of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into the Ethiopic liturgical language of Geez’.
The story is about the historical, cultural, and religious significance of these Gospels but it is also about the brutality of the Tigray war in Ethiopia, which started in November 2020, and lasted two years.
It sheds light on the underreported Garima massacre that happened in the area, and the accounts of civilians and the monks of the Garima monastery, who witnessed the attacks by Eritrean soldiers.
Here's an excerpt:
Father Gebretsadik said that when he heard that Eritrean soldiers had crossed into Tigray, he knew nothing and no one would be spared the devastation that was to come. But the monks said there were other signs, too. The crops around Garima grew poorly that year and then were ravaged by locusts — great billowing swarms of them swept across the highlands in the months leading up to war. Then there was the hate speech, blasted from megaphones and spread across the internet, as political and religious leaders across Ethiopia compared Tigrayans to “demons” and “weeds” to be exorcised and excised from the earth.
In Garima, as documented in other places during the war, soldiers forced bodies to remain unburied in the community after committing mass killings.
Here's an excerpt of an explanation behind that act:
Depriving a body of a proper burial is “violent on so many levels,” explained Meron Gebreananye, a Tigrayan scholar who holds a Ph.D. in religion and theology from the University of Durham. “On the one hand it is traumatic seeing your loved one’s bodies out in the open. But you are also losing a sense of healing that might have come from a ritual burial.”
The full story on, New Lines Magazine, here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, feel free to share this with anyone you think can benefit from keeping up with what’s going on in Ethiopia.
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