Ethiopia: Digital Attacks Intensify

(New York) – The Ethiopian government has renewed efforts to silence independent voices abroad by using apparent foreign spyware, Human Rights Watch said today. The Ethiopian authorities should immediately cease digital attacks on journalists, while foreign surveillance technology sellers should investigate alleged abuses linked to their products.

Independent researchers at the Toronto-based research center Citizen Lab on March 9, 2015, reported new attempts by Ethiopia to hack into computers and accounts of Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) employees based in the United States. The attacks bear similarities to earlier attempts to target Ethiopian journalists outside Ethiopia dating back to December 2013. ESAT is an independent, diaspora-run television and radio station.

“Ethiopia’s government has over the past year intensified its assault on media freedom by systematically trying to silence journalists,” saidCynthia Wong, senior Internet researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These digital attacks threaten journalists’ ability to protect the safety of their sources and to avoid retaliation.”

The government has repressed independent media in Ethiopia ahead of the general elections scheduled for May, Human Rights Watch said. Many privately owned print publications heavily self-censor coverage of politically sensitive issues or have shut down. In the last year, at least 22 journalists, bloggers, and publishers have been criminally charged, at least six publications have closed amid a campaign of harassment, and many journalists have fled the country.

Many Ethiopians turn to ESAT and other foreign stations to obtain news and analysis that is independent of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. However, intrusive surveillance of these news organizations undermines their ability to protect sources and further restricts the media environment ahead of the elections. Government authorities have repeatedly intimidated, harassed, and arbitrarily detained sources providing information to ESAT and other foreign stations.

Citizen Lab’s analysis suggests the attacks were carried out with spyware called Remote Control System (RCS) sold by the Italian firm Hacking Team, which sells surveillance and hacking technology. This spyware was allegedly used in previous attempts to infect computers of ESAT employees in December 2013. If successfully installed on a target’s computer, the spyware would allow a government controlling the software access to activity on a computer or phone, including email, files, passwords typed into the device, contact lists, and audio and video from the device’s microphone and camera.

Citizen Lab also found that the spyware used in the attacks against ESAT appeared to have been updated as recently as December 2014. On November 19, a security researcher, Claudio Guarnieri, along with several nongovernmental organizations, publicly released a tool called Detekt, which can be used to scan computers for Hacking Team RCS and other spyware. Citizen Lab’s testing determined that Detekt was able to successfully recognize the version of RCS used in a November attack, but not the version used in a December attack. Citizen Lab concluded that this may indicate that the software had been updated sometime between the two attempts.

These new findings, if accurate, raise serious concerns that Hacking Team has not addressed evidence of abuseof its product by the Ethiopian government and may be continuing to facilitate that abuse through updates or other support, Human Rights Watch said.

Hacking Team states that it sells exclusively to governments, particularly law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The firm told Human Rights Watch in 2014 that “we expect our clients to behave responsibly and within the law as it applies to them” and that the firm will suspend support for its technology if it believes the customer has used it “to facilitate gross human rights abuses” or “who refuse to agree to or comply with provisions in [the company’s] contracts that describe intended use of HT [Hacking Team] software.” Hacking Team has also stated that it has suspended support for their product in the past, in which case the “product soon becomes useless.”

Media reports and research by independent human rights organizations in the past year have documented serious human rights violations by the Ethiopian government that at times have been facilitated by misuse of surveillance powers. Although spyware companies market their products as “lawful intercept” solutions used to fight serious crime or counterterrorism, the Ethiopian government has abused its counterterrorism laws to prosecute bloggers and journalists who merely report on public affairs or politically sensitive issues. Ethiopian laws that authorize surveillance do not adequately protect the right to privacy, due process, and other basic rights, and are inconsistent with international human rights requirements.

Hacking Team previously told Human Rights Watch that “to maintain their confidentiality” the firm does not “confirm or deny the existence of any individual customer or their country location.” On February 25, 2015, Human Rights Watch wrote to the firm to ask whether it has investigated possible abuse of its products by the Ethiopian government to target independent media and hack into ESAT computers. In response, on March 6 a representative of the firm emailed Human Rights Watch that the company “take[s] precautions with every client to assure that they do not abuse our systems, and, we investigate when allegations of misuse arise” and that the firm is “attempting to understand the circumstances in this case.” The company also stated that “it can be quite difficult to get to actual facts particularly since we do not operate surveillance systems in the field for our clients.” Hacking Team raised unspecified questions about the evidence presented to identify the spyware used in these attacks.

Human Rights Watch also asked the company whether contractual provisions to which governmental customers agree address governments’ obligations under international human rights law to protect the right to privacy, freedom of expression, and other human rights. In a separate March 7 response from the firm’s representative, Hacking Team told Human Rights Watch that the use of its technology is “governed by the laws of the countries of our clients,” and sales of its technology are regulated by the Italian Economics Ministry under the Wassenaar Arrangement, a multilateral export controls regime for dual-use technologies. The company stated that it relies “on the International community to enforce its standards for human rights protection.”

The firm has not reported on what, if any, investigation was undertaken in response to the March 2014 Human Rights Watch report discussing how spyware that appeared to be Hacking Team’s RCS was used to target ESAT employees in 2013. In its March 7 response, the company told Human Rights Watch that it will “take appropriate action depending on what we can determine,” but they “do not report the results of our investigation to the press or other groups, because we consider this to be an internal business matter.”

Without more disclosure of how Hacking Team has addressed potential abuses linked to its business, the strength of its human rights policy will be in question, Human Rights Watch said. 

Sellers of surveillance systems have a responsibility to respect human rights, which includes preventing, mitigating, and addressing abuses linked to its business operations, regardless of whether government customers adequately protect rights.

“Hacking Team should publicly disclose what steps it has taken to avoid abuses of its product such as those alleged against the Ethiopian government,” Wong said. “The company protects the confidentiality of its customers, yet the Ethiopian government appears to use its spyware to compromise the privacy and security of journalists and their sources.” 

Source: hrw.org

Tedros Adhanom caught in $20 million teen prize scandal

By Abebe Gellaw

(Addis Voice) The Foreign Minister of Ethiopia has been caught in an explosive web of lies with a schoolgirl as the Government of Australia and the Rotary Foundation have denied giving 20 million Australian dollars to a 14-year old teenager, whom the nation’s “top diplomat” publicly praised and endorsed as an “exemplary philanthropist” and claimed her to be the winner of an unnamed “international prize”.

The Ethiopian-Australian girl, Beritu Jaleta Ahmed, claimed last week in a joint press conference with Dr. Tedros Adhanom in his own office that she was ready to build a school in Ethiopia with the 20 million Australian dollars that she won in a student competition held at her school in Melbourne. According to her, the prize money was jointly funded by the Australian Government and the Rotary Club of Australia [sic].

But Baden Powell College’s leadership, who knew nothing about the the competition or the prize, have already referred the matter to Victoria Police for investigation, Addis Voice has learnt. The public school that takes students from prep to 9th grade is dominated by students from immigrant families. It has around 1800 students, 180 staff and 50 volunteers. It gets an annual budget of around 12 million Australian dollars from the coffers of the Victoria Department of Education.

Tedros Adhanom publicly praised the teenager as a unique “role model” among the Ethiopian Diaspora for allocating such a large amount of money for development at such a young age. He commended her philanthropy and pledged that the government of Ethiopia would provide all the necessary support for the completion of the “modern school” project from nursery to secondary school levels that she planned build in Gara Muleta, Eastern Harargie, the birthplace of her father.

The Government of Australia and the Rotary Foundation have distanced themselves from the scheme and told Addis Voice that they have never heard of such a grand prize or the teenage winner of a multi-million dollars school competition. Some members of the Ethiopian community in Melbourne have blamed the girl’s father and the government in getting involved in such a shameful scam that can adversely affect the image of the country.

Jenna Hand, a spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, refuted the teenager’s claim that the Government of Australia gave her half of the prize money. In a written statement emailed to this reporter, the spokesperson said: “The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has not given 10 million Australian dollars to fund a school in Gara Muleta, Ethiopia. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade supports education in Ethiopia by providing core funding to the Global Partnership for Education. Ethiopia is a recipient of Global Partnership for Education funding,” the official Australian Government statement said.

The Foreign Minister had also maximized the PR “opportunity” by spreading and spinning the news, along with pictures of himself, the girl and her father, Jaleta Ahmed, on Facebook and Twitter. “Beritu Jaleta has done an extraordinary deed that we should all learn from,” he wrote on his Facebook page. Under Australian law any person under the age of eighteen is considered a child.

“I came here to Ethiopia to build a school in Gara Muleta, Harargie. I won a competition of 20 million Australian dollars. So I came here with the Embassy of the government of Ethiopia in Australia to begin my project and the construction and also see the area and the land,” she told journalists, who were not allowed to raise any serious questions during the press the stage managed conference held in the office of the Minister.

Tewolde Mulugeta, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, added a spin to the propaganda claiming that she received the award last year for her extraordinary academic performance and proposal to build a school. “She used to participate in various school clubs. One of the clubs was the one she headed in areas of human affairs. While she was working in that club, they were exchanging views regarding the support of people for others,” Tewolde said unconvincingly. “The main thing was that she proposed an idea to create opportunities for others to get education. We have learned that people who have heard the idea arranged the prize for her. This happened nearly one year ago, around 2014,” he claimed nervously without providing any proofs and verification.  

Bruce Allen, Manager of Rotary International in Australia, pointed out that 1300 Rotary Clubs raised only $A 5.6 million dollars for its own humanitarian projects and activities last year let alone giving “an outrageous amount of money” to a 14-year old school girl. “It is totally out of question. There was no application or grant to this person,” he said.

“She is saying that half the money came from the Rotary Club and half of it from the Government Australia. There is no way that any Rotary Club in Australia could afford to pay that amount of money. We just don’t have the money. She got 20 million Australian dollars and I find it highly unlikely. That is an outrageous amount of money,” Mr. Allen noted. He also said that there is nothing called “Rotary Club of Australia” as the girl said because there are 1300 Rotary clubs in the country.

“We only have money for a whole rage of humanitarian programs. But we will never ever get involved to this extent. It is a lot of money and there is no Rotary Club in Australia that could afford to do that.There is a key point here. She is saying that half the money came from the Rotary Club and half the money is coming from the Australian government. There is no way any Rotary Club in Australia could afford to pay that amount of money,” he said.

So many puzzled Ethiopians took to social media to vent their anger and express their doubts on how the person in charge of Ethiopia’s foreign relations is unaware of unlikely global developments as well as the legal implications of corrupting the morals and psychology of a child by involving her in such an orchestrated web of lies and deceptions never heard of in the history of schools anywhere in the world without making any effort to verify such claims.

by 37 percent in a bid to reduce the cost of the national expenditure. From $A 225 million the previous year, the Government of Australia cut its aid to Africa to just 133 million AUD.What makes the story even more ludicrous and bizarre is the fact that during the 2013/14 budget year Australia cut its foreign aid to Sub-Saharan Africa

During the same budget year, Rotary Foundation gave grants totalling $14.2 million to support 265 projects worldwide in the areas of disease prevention and treatment that he foundation dispersed  totalling only $6.5 for education and literacy to support 66 projects around the world,  according to its annual report.

Meanwhile, the Baden Powell College administration declined to give any official statement. But a school source, who spoke on condition anonymity, told Addis Voice that the school officials are very upset and disappointed to be dragged into this kind of scandalous scam.

“Because the issue involves a minor and is also under investigation by the police, we are not authorized to make any public comments,” the source said. The motto of the school is “Looking Forward, and Staying Ahead.” It is not now clear if Mr. Jaleta Ahmed and his daughter are looking forward to returning to Australia to face the music or would rather stay in Ethiopia despite being caught in dangerous web of lies and scandals.

Source:addisvoice.com