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Seattle: Protests over civil rights abuses in Ethiopia: The protesters, many of them members of the East African community — want Washington senators to pressure Ethiopian leaders or cut U.S. aid in the wake of the ongoing mass killings that they say are targeting ethnic Oromos in Ethiopia. #OromoProtests December 30, 2015

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Odaa OromooSay no to the master killer. Addis Ababa master plan is genocidal plan against Oromo people. Say no.Stop killing Oromo Students

Protest for Ethiopian Civil Rights blocks downtown Seattle streets

Global Solidalirty rally with #OromoProtests in Oromia@Seattle 29 December 2015

Demonstration is in wake of mass killings in Ethiopia

Seattle (Kiro7 News) — Seattle on Tuesday as it made way to the Federal Building.
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http://www.kirotv.com/videos/online/video-seattles-ethiopian-community-march-downtown/vDgtcn/
The protesters — many of them members of the East African community — want Washington senators to pressure Ethiopian leaders or cut U.S. aid in the wake of the ongoing mass killingsthat they say are targeting ethnic Oromos in Ethiopia. See photos from the protest here.

Here is the reason for the protest

Members of the East African community in Seattle planned a huge rally with regard to the “ongoing mass killings targeting ethnic Oromos  in Ethiopia.”

“The Ethiopian regime is the largest U.S aid recipient in Africa and the protestors will be heading to the Federal Building to demand both Senators pressure the Ethiopian regime or cut the US aid to the dictatorial regime,” a news release said.

Protestors at Federal building say Ethiopian govt. is oppressing Oromo students. @DanKingImages gets the video.

They plan to send a letter to Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.

“We, members of the Oromo community in Seattle and Metropolitan area, refugees and immigrants alike, arise in protest because we believe American aid is financing human and environmental atrocities directed against the Oromo people by the current Ethiopian regime,” a letter they wrote says in part.

About the killings in Ethiopia

An Ethiopian opposition party charged Wednesday that Ethiopian government forces have killed more than 80 people in the past four weeks in protests in the country’s Oromia region, according to The Associated Press.

Violent clashes between protesters and security forces have spread across Ethiopia’s Oromia Region, the biggest and most populous of Ethiopia’s federal states. Oromo students have led protests against the government’s plan which they charge will take lands from their region and displace thousands of farmers.

The government charges that the protesters are working with “terrorists.” It claims that only five protesters have been killed and that the development plan for the capital city, Addis Ababa,  will not deprive farmers of land. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, speaking on Ethiopian state television, warned that the government “will take merciless legitimate action against any force bent on destabilizing the area.”

Protest had minimal traffic impacts

The Seattle Department of Transportation reported shortly after 11 a.m. that the demonstration started at 14th Avenue and Jackson Street near the Central District.

The demonstration went through Pioneer Square around noon, and it ended after the march to the Federal Building.

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Ethiopia Censors Satellite TV Channels as Student Protests Draw Global Media Attention. #OromoProtests December 30, 2015

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Ethiopia Censors Satellite TV Channels as Student Protests Draw Global Media Attention

29 December 2015 
Protesters in the Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa demand TPLF stop killing Oromo students. Photo by Gadaa via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Protesters in the Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa demand TPLF stop killing Oromo students. Photo be Gadaa via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

The Ethiopian government is reportedly undertaking a massive clampdown on dissenting citizen voices in relation with the ongoing Oromo student protests in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest administrative region.

The regional political party known as the Oromo Federalist Congress reports that upwards of 80 people have been killed over the past four weeks by government forces. The government has yet to release its own updated numbers, but said on December 15 that five people had died.

Alongside increasing tensions around protests, security forces have arrested two opposition politicians, two journalists, and summoned five bloggers — all members of the Zone9 collective, who were acquitted of baseless terrorism charges just two months ago — to appear in court on December 30.

The government has also reinforced censorship campaigns against US-based Ethiopian satellite TV channels as well as protest songs that were produced in solidarity with Oromo protesters.

Torture marks on musician Hawi Tezera after she was arrested for supporting Oromo student protesters with music. Photo shared on Facebook by Jawar Mohammed.

Torture marks on musician Hawi Tezera after she was arrested for supporting Oromo student protesters with music. Photo shared on Facebook by Jawar Mohammed.

Protesters of the “Master Plan” to expand the capital city, Addis Ababa, into Oromia fear that the proposed development will displace large numbers of farmers mostly belonging to the Oromo ethnic group. Since demonstrations across the region began, the Ethiopian government has tried hard to stifle any kind of information about the outcry.

However, photos, videos and audio materials captured on mobile phones of the protests and of police brutality have made their way out of the country and are widely shared on the US-based satellite TV channels ESAT and Oromia Media Network (OMN).

These two channels reach tens of millions of Ethiopians who don’t have access to the Internet but who do have satellite dishes and depend on the two channels for news, analysis and views about the protest in Amharic and Afan Oromo, two of Ethiopia’s major languages.

Executives from the satellite channels report that Ethiopian authorities attempted to prohibit their broadcasting services. Jawar Mohammed, executive director of OMN, wrote on his Facebook page:

Notice: OMN is NOT back on satellite yet. It was NOT jammed either. Transmission was discontinued by the service provider under duress. The satellite we were on Eutelsat 8WB is still not jammable. Stay tune for details as soon as piece it together.And the promise remains the same; OMN will be back on air very soon one way or another!

Meanwhile, ESAT posted the following on their website:

The management of the Ethiopian Satellite Television and Radio (ESAT) said the regime in Ethiopia has jammed one of its two satellites, Eutelsat E8WB @ 8West starting the morning of Saturday December 19, 2015. .This latest move by the regime came at a time when ESAT has been widely covering the growing protest against the tyrannical regime in Ethiopia. Ethiopians rely on ESAT for news and information about their country. The regime, known for muzzling press freedom and one of the top jailers of journalists in the world, is spending millions of dollars on jamming equipment to deny people access to information.

Citizen reports on Facebook indicate that Ethiopian authorities have started to frantically send security forces around to remove satellite dish receivers from the rooftops of residents particularly in Oromia region.

Photo taken from Facebook page of Getachew Shiferaw

Photo taken from Facebook page of Getachew Shiferaw

Getachew Shiferaw, editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Negere Ethiopia, wasarrested. Two days earlier, he had shared a photo showing satellite dish receivers on rooftops (above) with the following note on Facebook:

They [Ethiopian government] are wrong if they think all these satellite dish receivers are set up to watch their tired propaganda.

Again, Jawar Mohammed wrote on his Facebook page:

The War on Satellite Dishes Continue. If the regime thinks it can cut our audience off from receiving OMN news and programs, they are too dumb to understand what we are made off. Just as we beat them time and again during their 10 jamming in the last 18 months, we will beat them again by staying several steps a head of them. Even if they take down every dish in the country, we will still find a way to reach our audience. Time for them to give up and face up to the truth!

Both ESAT and OMN say that in the past, they have moved their signals to other satellites that are harder for the Ethiopian government to jam. They both frequently notify their audiences in Ethiopia and advise them to re-position their dishes accordingly.

The Ethiopian authorities see these channels as mouthpieces of outlawed oppositions groups engaged in destabilizing the country. Although the government usually denies jamming satellites services, media outlets such as France24, Deutsche Welle and BBC have all condemned Ethiopian authorities for interfering with their broadcasting abilities.

Ethiopian authorities’ satellite jamming is similar to Internet censorship, whereby the government blocks access to websites, blogs and online radios, which are mostly set up by journalists and activists living in exile. Ethiopia tops the list of countries forcing journalists to flee into exile for fear of persecution.