Posted: 26 Mar 2014 05:06 AM PDT
March 25, 2014
AFP –
Ethiopia is using foreign technology to spy on citizens suspected of
being critical of the government, Human Rights Watch said in a report
released Tuesday.![Ethiopia is using foreign technology to spy on citizens](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiaIGy4TT6Q5242cLt1iRxajVuCzdzFPGA2NR8_1DHk3sJWy3f2A11ewEupgb7qKJOZYYJhVxJLmwYdXWb8f6i7-zhnf4svCkNgsQBt-9f9IeDMtxxlVVmgAMyrYwF1wCr2bN7D70njuhnKEs67SojZsflLlr5jXuUWgoeMRA93X_YATiitHhvr4kOINlodMjHxcQ38-Zou30aT3DCSb0i_X8rqzw=s0-d-e1-ft)
The
report accused the government of using Chinese and European technology
to survey phone calls and Internet activity in Ethiopia and among the
diaspora living overseas, and HRW said firms colluding with the
government could be guilty of abuses.
“The
Ethiopian government is using control of its telecom system as a tool
to silence dissenting voices,” HRW’s business and human rights director
Arvind Ganesan, said in a statement.
“The
foreign firms that are providing products and services that facilitate
Ethiopia’s illegal surveillance are risking complicity in rights
abuses.”
The
Ethiopian government dismissed the report as “mud-slinging” and accused
the rights watchdog of repeatedly unfairly targeting the country.
“This
is one of the issues that it has in the list of its campaigns to smear
Ethiopia’s image, so there is nothing new to respond to it, because
there is nothing new to it,” Ethiopia’s Information Minister, Redwan
Hussein, told AFP.
He
said Ethiopia is committed to improving access to telecommunications as
part of its development program, not as a means to increase
surveillance.
“The
government is trying its level best to create access to not only to the
urban but to all corners of the country,” Redwan added.
Ethiopia’s
phone and internet networks are controlled by the state-owned Ethio
Telecom, the sole telecommunications provider in the country.
HRW said the government’s telecommunications monopoly allows it to readily monitor user activity.
“Security
officials have virtually unlimited access to the call records of all
telephone users in Ethiopia. They regularly and easily record phone
calls without any legal process or oversight,” the report said.
The
rights watchdog said information gathered was often used to garner
evidence against independent journalists and opposition activists, both
inside Ethiopia and overseas.
In
February, a US man filed a lawsuit against the Ethiopian government,
accusing authorities of infecting his computer with spyware to monitor
his online activity.
Rights
groups have accused Ethiopia of cracking down on political dissenters,
independent media and civil society through a series of harsh laws,
including anti-terrorism legislation.
Only
about 23 percent of Ethiopia’s 91 million people subscribe to mobile
phones, and less than one percent have access to mobile internet,
according to the International Telecommunications Union.
The government has committed to increasing mobile access by 2015, as part of an ambitious development plan.
Ethiopia has hired two Chinese firms, ZTE and Huawei, to upgrade the mobile network across the country.
Human Right Watch Full Report
Ethiopia: Telecom Surveillance Chills Rights
Foreign Technology Used to Spy on Opposition inside Country, Abroad
(Berlin)
– The Ethiopian government is using foreign technology to bolster its
widespread telecom surveillance of opposition activists and journalists
both in Ethiopia and abroad, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 100-page report, “‘They Know Everything We Do’: Telecom and Internet Surveillance in Ethiopia,”
details the technologies the Ethiopian government has acquired from
several countries and uses to facilitate surveillance of perceived
political opponents inside the country and among the diaspora. The
government’s surveillance practices violate the rights to freedom of
expression, association, and access to information. The government’s
monopoly over all mobile and Internet services through its sole,
state-owned telecom operator, Ethio Telecom, facilitates abuse of
surveillance powers.
“The Ethiopian government is using control of its telecom system as a tool to silence dissenting voices,” said Arvind Ganesan,
business and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The foreign
firms that are providing products and services that facilitate
Ethiopia’s illegal surveillance are risking complicity in rights
abuses.”
The report draws on more than 100 interviews with victims of abuses and former intelligence officials in Ethiopia and
10 other countries between September 2012 and February 2014. Because of
the government’s complete control over the telecom system, Ethiopian
security officials have virtually unlimited access to the call records
of all telephone users in Ethiopia. They regularly and easily record
phone calls without any legal process or oversight.
Recorded
phone calls with family members and friends – particularly those with
foreign phone numbers – are often played during abusive interrogations
in which people who have been arbitrarily detained are accused of
belonging to banned organizations. Mobile networks have been shut down
during peaceful protests and protesters’ locations have been identified
using information from their mobile phones.
A
former opposition party member told Human Rights Watch: “One day they
arrested me and they showed me everything. They showed me a list of all
my phone calls and they played a conversation I had with my brother.
They arrested me because we talked about politics on the phone. It was
the first phone I ever owned, and I thought I could finally talk
freely.”
The
government has curtailed access to information by blocking websites
that offer any independent or critical analysis of political events in
Ethiopia. In-country testing that Human Rights Watch and Citizen Lab,
a University of Toronto research center focusing on internet security
and rights, carried out in 2013 showed that Ethiopia continues to block
websites of opposition groups, media sites, and bloggers. In a country
where there is little in the way of an independent media, access to such
information is critical.
Ethiopian
authorities using mobile surveillance have frequently targeted the
ethnic Oromo population. Taped phone calls have been used to compel
people in custody to confess to being part of banned groups, such as the
Oromo Liberation Front, which seeks greater autonomy for the Oromo
people, or to provide information about members of these groups.
Intercepted emails and phone calls have been submitted as evidence in
trials under the country’s flawed anti-terrorism law, without indication
that judicial warrants were obtained.
The
authorities have also detained and interrogated people who received
calls from phone numbers outside of Ethiopia that may not be in Ethio
Telecom databases. As a result, many Ethiopians, particularly in rural
areas, are afraid to call or receive phone calls from abroad, a
particular problem for a country that has many nationals working in
foreign countries.
Most
of the technologies used to monitor telecom activity in Ethiopia have
been provided by the Chinese telecom giant ZTE, which has been in the
country since at least 2000 and was its exclusive supplier of telecom
equipment from 2006 to 2009. ZTE is a major player in the African and
global telecom industry, and continues to have a key role in the
development of Ethiopia’s fledgling telecom network. ZTE has not
responded to Human Rights Watch inquiries about whether it is taking
steps to address and prevent human rights abuses linked to unlawful
mobile surveillance in Ethiopia.
Several
European companies have also provided advanced surveillance technology
to Ethiopia, which have been used to target members of the diaspora.
Ethiopia appears to have acquired and used United Kingdom and
Germany-based Gamma International’s FinFisher and Italy-based Hacking
Team’s Remote Control System. These tools give security and intelligence
agencies access to files, information, and activity on the infected
target’s computer. They can log keystrokes and passwords and turn on a
device’s webcam and microphone, effectively turning a computer into a
listening device. Ethiopians living in the UK, United States, Norway,
and Switzerland are among those known to have been infected with this
software, and cases have been brought in the US and UK alleging
illegal wiretapping. One Skype conversation gleaned from the computers
of infected Ethiopians has appeared on pro-government websites.
Gamma
has not responded to Human Rights Watch inquiries as to whether it has
any meaningful process in place to restrict the use or sale of these
products to governments with poor human rights records. While Hacking
Team applies certain precautions to limit abuse of its products, it has
not confirmed whether and how those precautions applied to sales to the
Ethiopian government.
“Ethiopia’s
use of foreign technologies to target opposition members abroad is a
deeply troubling example of this unregulated global trade, creating
serious risks of abuse,” Ganesan said. “The makers of these tools should
take immediate steps to address their misuse; including investigating
the use of these tools to target the Ethiopian diaspora and addressing
the human rights impact of their Ethiopia operations.”
Such
powerful spyware remains virtually unregulated at the global level and
there are insufficient national controls or limits on their export,
Human Rights Watch said. In 2013, rights groups filed a complaint at
the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development alleging
such technologies had been deployed to target activists in Bahrain, and
Citizen Lab has found evidence of use of these tools in over 25 countries.
The
internationally protected rights to privacy, and freedom of expression,
information, and association are enshrined in the Ethiopian
constitution. However, Ethiopia either lacks or ignores judicial and
legislative mechanisms to protect people from unlawful government
surveillance. This danger is made worse by the widespread use of torture and other ill-treatment against political detainees in Ethiopian detention centers.
The
extent of Ethiopia’s use of surveillance technologies may be limited by
capacity issues and a lack of trust among key government ministries,
Human Rights Watch said. But as capacity increases, Ethiopians may
increasingly see far more pervasive unlawful use of mobile and email
surveillance.
The
government’s actual control is exacerbated by the perception among many
Ethiopians that government surveillance is omnipresent, resulting in
considerable self-censorship, with Ethiopians refraining from openly
communicating on a variety of topics across telecom networks.
Self-censorship is especially common in rural Ethiopia, where mobile
phone coverage and access to the Internet is very limited. The main mode
of government control is through extensive networks of informants and a
grassroots system of surveillance. This rural legacy means that many
rural Ethiopians view mobile phones and other telecommunications
technologies as just another tool to monitor them, Human Rights Watch
found.
“As
Ethiopia’s telecom system grows, there is an increasing need to ensure
that proper legal protections are followed and that security officials
don’t have unfettered access to people’s private communications,”
Ganesan said. “Adoption of Internet and mobile technologies should
support democracy, facilitating the spread of ideas and opinions and
access to information, rather than being used to stifle people’s
rights.”
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