Ethiopia: Witness - the Price of Mass Surveillance
25 March 2014
press release
Abeba, a 31-year-old Muslim woman who worked for a local government branch
of Ethiopia's youth and sports office, was at work when Ethiopian security
officials detained her and took her to a military camp.
The authorities accused her of mobilizing Ethiopian Muslims - often ethnic
Oromos like herself - against the government, Abeba said. When Abeba denied
the allegation, the officers played a recording of a phone conversation she
had with her sister, who lives in Yemen. The conversation was about
day-to-day matters, Abeba said, but the authorities insisted that Abeba was
talking in code, which peaceful Ethiopian activists often do to stay out of
jail.
Abeba said she was locked in a small cell. That night, she was raped four
times - she doesn't know by whom. It was dark, and she couldn't see.
A year ago, the world was rocked by revelations of massive spying by the
United States National Security Agency. While few in the US worry that the
surveillance will result in threats to their lives or their families, that's
not true in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia - one of the world's most repressive countries - has virtually
unlimited access to its citizens' phone records, thanks to China-made
surveillance technology. A new Human Rights Watch report, "
<
http://www.hrw.org/node/123977> They Know Everything We Do': Telecom and
Internet Surveillance in Ethiopia, based on more than 100 interviews with
victims of abuse and former intelligence officials, shows how authorities
use access to mobile data and call recordings to harass and arrest people
they believe oppose the government. This knowledge is even more disturbing
given that torture of political prisoners happens all too often in
Ethiopia's prisons.
Recorded phone calls with family members and friends - particularly those
with foreign phone numbers-are played during abusive interrogations in which
people are often accused of belonging to banned organizations.
Phone networks have been shut down during peaceful protests and protesters'
locations have been pinpointed using information from their mobile phones.
Intercepted emails and phone calls have been submitted as evidence in trials
under the country's flawed anti-terrorism law, although it seems no warrants
were obtained to collect this information.
Spyware developed by British, German, and Italian companies has also been
used to target Ethiopians living abroad. Once a person's computer is
infected by such spyware, security and intelligence agencies have nearly
unfettered access to files, information, and activity on the target's
computer. They can log keystrokes and passwords and turn on a device's
webcam and the microphone, effectively turning a computer into a listening
device. This software, used to target Ethiopians living in the United
Kingdom, the United States, Norway and Switzerland, has been used to capture
Skype conversations that have appeared on pro-government websites.
This spyware can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ethiopia is an
impoverished country with chronic food shortages, and received over $4
billion in development assistance in 2013 alone. Efforts should be directed
at improving the rights of its population, not at using the latest
technology to undermine those rights.
In late 2011, Ethiopia's government began interfering with the rights of the
country's Muslim minority by meddling in the activities of the Supreme
Council of Islamic Affairs. In response, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopia's
Muslims, who make up about 40 to 45 percent of the population, took to the
streets in protest. It was these protests that authorities accused Abeba of
helping to organize.
Abeba believes she was arrested because she received emails from Yemen. The
security officials had printed out the emails but couldn't read Abeba's
native Afan Oromo language and even asked her what was written, Abeba said.
The fact that the e-mails came from an Arab country might have been enough
for them. The officials also used her Facebook activity as evidence against
her: Abeba had posted an Al Jazeera article about the Muslim protests in
Ethiopia.
That time, she said, they beat her and let her go.
The second time, she was arrested after speaking on the phone with her
sister in Yemen, she believes. Officials listened to her ring tone, which
was religious, and called it "illegal." Then the officers examined her phone
and said her many contacts in Arab countries -- her sister in Yemen, a
brother in Oman and cousins in Saudi Arabia -- were further evidence of her
guilt. But having relatives abroad is common for Ethiopian Muslims because
so many flee their country's poverty for potential work in Arab lands.
The officials didn't consider that Abeba lived in a region of Ethiopia where
few protests had occurred. They detained her for three months. Shortly after
her release, she fled to Kenya.
Abeba seems lost and helpless; her family doesn't even know she fled to
Kenya. She is all alone there. She would very much like to call home to let
them know she is okay, but she won't. She's afraid the call will be traced.
Received on Tue Mar 25 2014 - 18:43:51 EDT