Ethiopians Have woken up; they are demanding democracy and freedom to say, read and listen to what they want With out any government interference!
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Great Ethiopian Run Provides Avenue for Peaceful Protest
Lewit
Today at 8:30am, an estimated 25 000 people gathered in Meskel Square to participate in the annual Great Ethiopian Run. However, almost immediately after the race began, the crowd seized the long-awaited opportunity to peacefully protest the escalating brutality of the EPRDF regime--demanding the immediate release of all political prisoners and an end to the dictatorial rule of Meles Zenawi.
Shouts of “Kinijit is back!” and “Give power to the educated!” mingled with slogans denouncing the Somalian invasion, and strains of peaceful hymns filled the air. Local police officers looked on in amazement as crowds swarmed the front of the ETV building, peacefully expressing their dissatisfaction and thanking Haile Gebre-Selassie for providing the opportunity to speak out against the mounting political oppression.(More...)
ETHIOPIAN GOVERNMENT BLOCKS BLOGS AGAIN!!
MarkMedia
There have been reports that the Great Ethiopian Run was used as a platform for protesting the governments policy on the threatened war with Somalia.
I can say that I saw groups of runners showing the V sign and chanting. The V sign is typically used by the opposition. To my ears the chant sounded like "thief, thief" but my lack of Amharic means that I can not say what other slogans were chanted if any.
What I do know is that all there is a blocking action against a large number of Ethiopian blog sites [both on and from]. I can not access any of the internationally hosted blogs from here in Addis. This is a strangulation of the freedom of speech and an obvious attempt to stop the flow of information on and about Ethiopia to its citizens.
It is not the first time this tactic has been used.
This is not surprising perhaps in a country where sending SMS/text messages has been stopped since the protests after the 2005 elections.
As the Ethiopian government and its economy rely to such a large extent on international donors, there need to be pressure brought from them to see that a democratic right to information is both required and enforced. The International Federation of Journalists migt also let their voice be heard.(More...)
