Highlight:

Response from Ethiopia was at first muted. No one could understand from where the story was coming. There had been no such law passed by the House of Representatives and the only previous legislation on the subject had been a whole decade earlier.

It was not until June 17th that Daniel Berhane, a blogger in Ethiopia, worked out that RWB must have been referring to the Telecom Fraud Offences draft. The blog printed relevant sections of the draft which made it quite clear that RWB had either not seen the draft or had failed to take the trouble to read it properly.

It had merely fitted its ideas about it into its own preconceived and inaccurate ideas of government media and press relations in Ethiopia. This included the oft repeated claim that there is no free press in Ethiopia, a gross libel on a number of English and Amharic language newspapers including Reporter, Fortune, Capital, Sub-Saharan, Daily Monitor, Seven Days, the Press Gazette, Fiteh and others.

The saga of Skype and international comment on press freedom in Ethiopia

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Recently, the Internet Huff Post in its Blog section ran a piece by Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, attacking governments which tried to control the Internet. Under the title “Stop Balkanizing the Internet” Ms. Schaake began: “The government of Ethiopia has announced a ban on the use of a wide range of Internet communication services. According to reports, the draft Telecom Law criminalizes the use of Skype and other Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. Violators face a high financial penalty or a 15 year prison sentence. In practice, the law would also mean that all Internet traffic of 85 million Ethiopians will be monitored. End of story for unrestricted Internet access, freedom of expression and access to information online. The subsequent international outcry has forced the government to clarify its intentions and signalled a possible backtracking of the initial plans.”

In fact, as has been well known for some weeks this whole story was complete nonsense. Its origins lie with Reporters Without Borders (RWB) which on June 7th ran a press statement which alleged that the use of VoIP hardware and software had been made a crime by new Ethiopian Telecom Service legislation, which RWB said had been passed into law on May 24th. RWB also claimed anyone violating this could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. This entirely mythical story seems to have originated from the fact that two weeks earlier a draft proclamation on the subject of Telecom Fraud Offences had been referred back by the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Representatives for further clarification (and redrafting) to the Information Network Security Agency which had been responsible for the original draft.

RWB’s story may have borne no relation to the reality, but once run the allegations were rapidly picked up by Al Jazeera, the BBC and other international media outlets as an example of “draconian law passed by a government dedicated to reducing freedom to receive or impart information”. Others which blindly repeated the alleged story, without checking, included PC Magazine, the Atlantic Magazine, the Los Angeles Times and numerous bloggers. All these and many other media outlets were quite content merely to quote RWB. Almost immediately a number of commentators waded in to add their voices to condemn “this gross infringement of press freedom”. All failed to make any checks or any efforts to investigate the story’s accuracy.

Response from Ethiopia was at first muted. No one could understand from where the story was coming. There had been no such law passed by the House of Representatives and the only previous legislation on the subject had been a whole decade earlier. It was not until June 17th that Daniel Berhane, a blogger in Ethiopia, worked out that RWB must have been referring to the Telecom Fraud Offences draft. The blog printed relevant sections of the draft which made it quite clear that RWB had either not seen the draft or had failed to take the trouble to read it properly. It had merely fitted its ideas about it into its own preconceived and inaccurate ideas of government media and press relations in Ethiopia. This included the oft repeated claim that there is no free press in Ethiopia, a gross libel on a number of English and Amharic language newspapers including Reporter, Fortune, Capital, Sub-Saharan, Daily Monitor, Seven Days, the Press Gazette, Fiteh and others.

A few days after RWB published its story, the Minister of State in the Government Communication Affairs Office (GCAO), Ato Shimelis Kemal, made it clear that the use of Voice over Internet Protocol, including Skype and Google Talk, was not, and would not be, banned in Ethiopia. He also made it clear that no law had been passed on May 24th though the Telecom Fraud Offence bill was under consideration. Indeed, the House of Peoples’ Representatives did pass the Proclamation on Telecom Fraud Offences, Proclamation 761/2012 but not until July 11th. This not only does not ban any VoIP services, it actually replaces a 2002 law which did, in theory, forbid such usage though it was never implemented and no one was ever prosecuted under it. The July 11th Proclamation is, in fact, concerned with illegal private use of telecom operator services including VoIP for gain without a permit from Ethio Telecom which has the monopoly of such activities.

RWB’s original response all this was to ignore the refutation of its story, though it appeared from an internal memo towards the end of June that it was thinking of trying to defend its position despite all the evidence against it. It apparently intended to claim that the law had really been passed and that “criminalization of VoIP” although not mentioned was actually “embedded” in the drafting. Even RWB must have felt this was hardly plausible as it quietly dropped the June 7th press statement from its website without comment.

It did not, however, get round to issuing any correction until July 6th when it quoted from a meeting with Ato Shimeles Kemal, who detailed the background to the proposed law as technological progress “and the alarming increase in the incidence of illegal telephone services that bypass the national network, posing loss of revenue and national security risks.” At the same time, RWB immediately added that it remained concerned over the issue, claiming that the draft was vaguely worded. It continued to try to defend its position with misleadingly selective, and inaccurate, quotations, continuing to ignore the clear and specific purpose of the draft. Indeed, as one commentator noted: RWB’s whole approach “…casts a serious doubt on the qualification, professional integrity and motive of the individuals who contributed, edited and approved” the story and RWB’s subsequent actions.

It is a point it is hard to disagree with, especially since RWB’s failure to apologize or correct in detail
such a serious mistake has allowed others, like Ms. Schaake, to continue to pick up its original discredited allegations. Even the Internet Advocacy Coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, who certainly should know better by now, attacked Ethiopia at the end of last month for “the introduction of legislation that would criminalize the offering of VoIP and Skype-like services”. He also claimed, equally erroneously, that the government had earlier blocked foreign VoIP services on an individual basis. Human Rights Watch was quick to pick up the allegations, and as of now has also failed to acknowledge that any mistake was made.

This is not the place, nor is there space, to go into detail about the way that a free, unregulated press operates or should operate, but it is pertinent to raise two points. Journalists, and organizations like RWB, are very capable of making “mistakes” and these can have a serious political or economic impact. There is a need for journalists themselves to be responsible in their reporting; and equally, of course, governments must provide the space in which journalists can operate freely and without fear. As important, this whole sorry saga of the way this story of Skype in Ethiopia was reported underlines the critical importance of organizations like RWB or CPJ taking the elementary precaution of carrying out basic factual checks about the accuracy of claims and allegations, and of looking from where their information is coming.

The Leveson Inquiry into the media in the UK is a fascinating example of the way an irresponsible media organization, News International, controlled by a single person, Rupert Murdoch, became powerful enough to believe it was above the law and above moral and ethical imperatives. It has been involved in a veritably swamp of illegalities, accused of extensive bribery of the police as well as hacking of phone conversations and other activities including inventing interviews and stories, and providing favours for politicians and others. Its activities have led to the closure of one paper and dozens of journalists being questioned and some arrested. The focus of the Leveson Inquiry is one particular media organization in the UK but there is plenty of evidence that other newspapers in the UK and those in other countries have indulged in similar practices if not on quite the scale of News International.

The real surprise of the Inquiry is not the way News International has behaved. It is that there has been so little outcry over all the political and police activity apart from complaints by a few News International journalists, who have spoken of a ‘witch-hunt’. One at least referred to a “huge operation driven by politicians [that] threatens the very foundation of a free press…Should we not be asking where all this is likely to lead? Will we have a better Press? Or a Press that has been bullied by politicians into delivering what they, not the readers, think fit?”

It’s a good question if only because if this sort of activity had been taking place anywhere in Africa or the Third World, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists or Human Rights Watch would have been falling over themselves to comment on the dangers to the right to free expression and the threats to free speech and to a free press, demanding that everyone should be released immediately and all police activity dropped. Western based international advocacy organizations have a very similar, and simple, approach to dealing with the Developing World: all allegations against a government must be true, and all government claims must be false. This is buttressed by their arrogant certainty that they are always right even when all the facts are against them. Human Rights Watch even tends to carry this argument to the logical absurdity that elections in Africa can only be classified as fair and free if the opposition wins. The phrase “double standards” comes to mind.

It all also underlines a point that should not need to be emphasized again and again: the need to ensure the accuracy of comment and criticism. This saga of RWB and of its false alarms over Skype seriously detracts from issues where there should be genuine concern over the problems of a free press. If RWB or CPJ continue to get it so badly wrong, they weaken their chance of having influence in cases where there is real need. The importance of getting it right can hardly be overstressed. It is a lesson that RWB in particular should clearly take to heart.

Source: A Week in the Horn – Aug. 3, 2012 issue.

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