Moment mob armed with makeshift weapons brawl on street after protest was held near Eritrean Embassy in north London – with police making a ‘number’ of arrests
Footage shows a riot which broke out on streets of north London this afternoon
The disorder happened near the Eritrean Embassy in Islington, with flags waved
A large crowd was spotted, with several men fighting with makeshift weapons
African specialist Martin Plaut earlier advertised a protest outside the embassy
Several members of the group are shown fighting — while carrying poles and other makeshift weapons.
Crowds could be heard shouting, as buses were halted in the street by their presence.
The Met Police said that the incident began as a peaceful protest, before a separate ‘large group’ approached.
This then escalated into a ‘confrontation’, with people shouting at officers in the street, before numerous people were arrested.
Some people in the crowd held their hands in the air, crossing them at the wrist, shouting ‘stop’.
Other protesters sat in the street, blocking traffic from moving past.
In video footage from the scene, a line of police officers could be seen standing together close to the crowd.
Later on, the protesters stood close to the police line, shouting and raising their hands in the air again, with the group pushing against officers.
As the pushing continued and became stronger, the police line broke, with officers moving the protesters back.
As officers attempted to clear the street so that traffic could pass through safely, the group continued to chant and shout.
The disorder is close to the Eritrean Embassy, with at least one person in the crowd spotted waving an Eritrean flag.
Officers were then seen trying to disperse the group, shouting ‘get back’, with some pushing protesters back along the street.
Former BBC journalist and African specialist Martin Plaut earlier advertised a protest outside the Eritrean Embassy, condemning Eritrea’s occupation of the Tigray region in the north of the country.
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement: ‘Police were called at around 13:35hrs on Sunday, 4, September to reports of a disturbance in the vicinity of the Eritrean embassy in White Lion Street, Islington.
‘A peaceful demonstration had been taking place at the location when a large group approached those demonstrating.
‘A number of people then became involved in a confrontation. Officers attended and separated those involved. A police presence remains on scene and officers continue to monitor the situation.
‘A number of arrests have been made for wilful obstruction of the highway and public order offences. There have been no reports of any serious injuries.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on March 10, 2022
😈 3 x Six Months = 666 – ፫/3 ጊዜ ስድስት ወራት= 666 😈
💭 Ethiopia Declares State Of Emergency Amid Continuing Protests
🛑 October 2016 – መስከረም ፳፻፱/2009 ዓ.ም
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn declared a SIX-month nationwide state of emergency on Sunday, saying months of unrest threatened Ethiopia’s stability.
Human rights groups say more than 500 people have been killed in protests in the Oromia region, Ethiopia’s largest and most populous region, since last year, when anger over a development plan for the capital turned into broader antigovernment demonstrations over politics and human rights abuses.
The government says the death toll is inflated.
“A state of emergency has been declared because the situation posed a threat against the people of the country,” the prime minister said on state-run television.
“Vital infrastructure, businesses, health and education centers, as well as government offices and courts have been destroyed,” he said.
He also repeated promises of political changes and plans for dialogue with the opposition.
The violence in Oromia, which surrounds the capital, Addis Ababa, and to a lesser extent in Amhara Province, has cast a shadow over a nation where a state-led industrial drive has created one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.
An American researcher was killed on Tuesday when stone-throwers attacked her car near Addis Ababa.
💭 Ethiopia Declares State of Emergency After PM’s Resignation
🛑 15 February 2018 – የካቲት ፳፻፲/2010ዓ.ም
Ethiopia announced a state of emergency on Friday, the day after the prime minister’s resignation, as pressure mounted on the country’s ruling coalition.
The coalition decided emergency rule was “vital to safeguarding the constitutional order”, state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation said.
In a news conference on Saturday morning, Defence Minister Siraj Fegessa said the state of emergency would last SIX months. He said it would include a ban on protests and publications that incite violence.
💭 Ethiopia Declares State of Emergency as Tigrayan Forces Gain Ground
🛑 November 2021 – ጥቅምት ፳፻፲፬ / 2014 ዓ.ም
Ethiopia declared aSIX-month state of emergency on Tuesday after forces from the northern region of Tigray said they were gaining territory and considering marching on the capital Addis Ababa.
The announcement came two days after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed urged citizens to take up arms to defend themselves against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Earlier on Tuesday, authorities in Addis Ababa told residents to register their arms and prepare to defend their neighbourhoods. read more
The state of emergency was imposed with immediate effect after the TPLF claimed to have captured several towns in recent days and said it might march on Addis Ababa, about 380 km (235 miles) to the south of their forward positions.
On the afternoon of November 2 last year, Gebremichael Teweldmedhin, a Tigrayan jeweller and father of nine, headed to work in Gonder, a city in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia where he had lived for more than three decades.
When Gebremichael arrived in the city, he found a mob looting his nephew’s workshop. Gebremichael begged them to stop. Instead, they turned on him.
One relative, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told the Bureau: “The looters took them, Gebremichael along with another 10 or 11 people who worked in that area – by vehicle. We tried to follow them but we were not able to get their whereabouts.
“Then other people told us they were killed. They are buried in a mass grave.”
Gebremichael was not political, his relative said. He was not educated, and did not engage with the hatred and misinformation that swamps Ethiopian social media. Yet his relative claimed online hate campaigns and calls for violence – particularly on Facebook – played a key role in not only his killing, but many others.
“The worst thing that contributed to their killing are the so-called activists who have been spreading hate on social media,” he told the Bureau. Some posts, he claimed, would name individuals or even post photos helping create an atmosphere “inciting attacks, killings and displacements”.
Thousands have died and millions more have been displaced since fighting broke out between government forces and armed opposition groups from the country’s Tigray region in November 2020. The government has also been fighting an armed group from the Oromia region, and the UN secretary general António Guterres said last November that “the stability of Ethiopia and the wider region is at stake”.
On November 9, Mercy Ndegwa, Facebook’s public policy director for East Africa, and Mark Smith, its global content management director, used a blog post to offer reassurances that Ethiopia “has been one of our highest priorities” and that their company “will remain in close communication with people on the ground”.
But the Bureau’s investigation has uncovered a litany of failures. The company has known for years that it was helping to directly fuel the growing tensions in the country. Many of those fighting misinformation and hate on the ground – fact checkers, journalists, civil society organisations and human rights activists – say Facebook’s support is still far less than it could and should be.
A senior member of Ethiopia’s media accused Facebook of “just standing by and watching this country fall apart”. Others told the Bureau that they felt requests for assistance had been ignored and that meetings failed to materialise. These failures, they said, were helping to fuel a conflict that has already led to reports of ethnic cleansing and mass rape. Amnesty International has accused both sides in the conflict of carrying out atrocities against civilians.
All the while posts inciting violence or making false claims designed to encourage hate between ethnic groups in Ethiopia have been allowed to circulate freely. The Bureau has identified and spoken with relatives of people allegedly killed in multiple different attacks, but has not been able to cross-check specific details on the ground because of the ongoing violence.
Facebook said it had worked for two years on a comprehensive strategy to keep people in Ethiopia safe on their platforms, including engaging with civil society groups, fact checking organisations, and forming a special policy unit.
Gebremichael’s family cited one Facebook user in particular: Solomon Bogale, an online activist with more than 86,000 followers on Facebook. Though listed on Facebook as living in London, Bogale’s social media indicates that he has been in Ethiopia since August 2021, with posts of him in fatigues and carrying an assault rifle often accompanied by statements praising the Fano, an Amharan nationalist vigilante group.
In the opinion of one of Gebremichael’s family members, Bogale’s “inciteful posts” had resulted in many attacks on Tigrayans in Gonder.
In the weeks before Gebremichael’s killing, Bogale called for people to “cleanse” the Amhara territories of the “junta”, a term often used by government supporters to refer to the Tigrayan forces fighting the government and Tigrayans more generally. The post continued: “We need to cleanse the region of the junta lineage present prior to the war!!”
On October 31, two days before Gebremichael’s disappearance, Bogale posted an image of an elderly woman holding grenades, with the caption: “#Dear people of Amhara, there are mothers like these who are fighting to destroy Amhara and destroy Ethiopia! The main solution to save the #Amhara people and to protect Ethiopia is we Amharas have to rise up!! Get together Amhara.”
The Bureau has verified that both posts remained up on Facebook almost four months later, along with many others from various sources containing hate speech, calls for violence and false claims. Throughout the conflict misinformation and hate have been deployed on Facebook and other social media, inflaming tensions and influencing the outcome of military operations.
Contacted over Facebook, Bogale denied that any Tigrayans were killed in Gonder in early November, saying all Tigrayans in the city were safe. He also claimed that Tigrayan forces had killed ethnic Amharans in the region.
He also said he would delete the posts cited by the Bureau.
Facebook said it had reviewed the posts flagged by the Bureau and had removed any content that violated its policies. The Bureau found one post had been removed. At the time of publication, the post of the woman holding grenades remained online.
Criticism of Facebook’s failings is made more damning by the extensive evidence that the company has known of the risk of such problems for years, according to disclosures made to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress in redacted form by the legal counsel of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. The redacted versions received by Congress were reviewed by a consortium of news organisations, including the Bureau.
As early as January 2019 an internal report into various countries’ “On-FB Badness” – a measure of harmful content on the platform, including hate and graphic violence – rated the situation in Ethiopia as “severe”, its second-highest category.
By June 2020, Facebook had become even more starkly aware of the problem. An internal document discussing measures used to assess the level of harmful content said it had “found significant gaps in our coverage (especially in Myanmar and Ethiopia)”.
Six months later, Ethiopia had risen to the top of Facebook’s list of countries where it needed to take action. In a presentation circulated on December 10 2020, the risk of societal violence in Ethiopia was ranked as “dire” – Facebook’s highest threat warning. It was the only country to be given that ranking.
More than a year on, the Bureau’s investigation has found that Facebook is said to have frequently ignored requests for support from fact checkers based in the country and some civil society organisations say they have not met with the company in 18 months. The Bureau has learned from multiple sources that Facebook only appointed its first senior policy executive from Ethiopia to work on East Africa in September.
Facebook does run a third-party fact-checking programme, providing partners with access to internal tools and payment for fact checks. As its website states: “We rely on independent fact checkers to review and rate the accuracy of stories through original reporting.” But it has not partnered with a single organisation based in Ethiopia to tackle the misinformation spread by all sides in the country’s conflict.
Abel Wabella, founder of the Ethiopian fact-checking initiative HaqCheck said Facebook had failed to support his organisation since he first approached executives more than a year ago.
“They told me, ‘OK, we can help you, just write to us, our email.’ They gave me their cards. And I wrote to them,” he told the Bureau. But he heard nothing back. “At that time, our initiative was very small, so I thought they didn’t find something good in our platform, so they wanted to keep silent because of that.”
Wabella sent two further emails over the next few months, the second to the new Facebook executive from Ethiopia he had heard had been appointed. Despite assuring him that she would take action in September, he said he had heard nothing from the company since.
Rehobot Ayalew, HaqCheck’s lead fact checker, said the lack of support had severely hampered her team’s work. “Most of the people have low media literacy, so Facebook is considered to be credible … So working with Facebook, and also checking and verifying Facebook content, is the major way to counter this disinformation.” Wabella added: “The problem is not specific to Tigray. Ethiopian citizens from every corner across ethnic groups were severely affected by hateful content circulating online, specifically Facebook.”
The other major independent fact-checking organisation based in Ethiopia, Ethiopia Check, is also not part of Facebook’s partner programme.
Facebook said it had constantly engaged with civil society organisations and human rights groups on the ground, but did not partner with HaqCheck and Ethiopia Check because neither was certified by the International Fact-Checking Network.
Facebook does work with two fact-checking organisations on content from Ethiopia – PesaCheck, which runs a small team in Nairobi, and Agence France-Presse (AFP) – but both of them are based outside the country. We understand that AFP has just one fact checker in the country but in response to our story Facebook told the Bureau that “both PesaCheck and AFP have teams based in Ethiopia for fact-checking”. While misinformation flagged by PesaCheck and AFP has often been labelled as false or removed by Facebook, content investigated and debunked by HaqCheck has largely remained unaltered and free to spread.
This has included false declarations of military victories on both sides, false allegations of attacks on civilians and false claims of captured infiltrators. On November 25 last year, the Ethiopian government banned all unofficial reporting of battles, further enforcing an information vacuum in which misinformation spreads easily.
“As far as I know, support for fact checkers in Ethiopia by Facebook is almost non-existent,” said the senior person working in Ethiopian media, who asked to remain anonymous. “Facebook doesn’t pay the attention Ethiopia needs at this crucial moment, and that’s contributing to the ongoing crisis by inflaming hatred and spreading hate speech.”
A number of civil society groups have similar complaints of feeling ignored and sidelined. Facebook organised a meeting with several groups in June 2020, to discuss how the platform could best regulate content before scheduled elections. As of November, two of the organisations involved said they had heard nothing about any subsequent meetings.
“The recent development has been overwhelming. Facebook should have had a similar consultation,” said Yared Hailemariam, executive director of the Ethiopian Human Right Defenders Center. “Facebook also ought to have a working group, collaborating with human rights organisations and civil society groups.”
Haben Fecadu, a human rights activist who has worked in Ethiopia, said the hate speech issue was flagged to Facebook years ago but the company had still not provided adequate resources to deal with it
“There’s really no excuse and I wish someone had come down harder on them about it,” she said. “I’ve doubted they have invested enough in their Africa content moderation, and doubt that the Africa team has had enough resources to moderate content properly. They don’t have enough moderators … I suspect they didn’t have a Tigrinya-speaking moderator until very recently.”
Facebook’s owner Meta said in January that it would “assess the feasibility” of complying with a recommendation by its independent oversight board that it launch a human rights assessment of its activity in Ethiopia. The recommendation came after the board directed Facebook to remove a post that claimed Tigrayans were involved in atrocities in the Amhara region.
Ayalew, the HaqCheck fact checker, said the inadequate support from one of the world’s richest companies was demoralising. “We usually come across sensitive content, images that are horrifying and hateful content. It’s hard by itself,” she said. “And when you know that, even though you’re trying, you’re not getting the support from the platform itself, that is allowing this kind of content.
“You ask yourself why? Why am I doing this? Because you know that they can do more, and they can change the situation. They have a big role in this, and they’re not doing anything. You’re trying alone.”
Mercy Ndegwa, speaking on behalf of Facebook, said: “For more than two years, we’ve invested in safety and security measures in Ethiopia, adding more staff with local expertise and building our capacity to catch hateful and inflammatory content in the most widely spoken languages, including Amharic, Oromo, Somali and Tigrinya. As the situation has escalated, we’ve put additional measures in place and are continuing to monitor activity on our platform, identify issues as they emerge, and quickly remove any content that breaks our rules.”
Just over three weeks after Gebremichael’s murder, Hadush Gebrekirstos, a 45-year-old who lived in Addis Ababa, was arbitrarily detained by police who heard him speaking Tigrinya.
“After they knew he was a Tigrinya speaker, they said, ‘This one is mercenary!’ and took him to a nearby police station … They were beating him hard,” said a relative, who also wished to remain anonymous and who was told what happened by witnesses.
“Two days after – on November 26 – his body was found dead, about 200 to 150m from the police station. They threw his body out there.”
Again, Hadush’s relative said he had no political or social media engagement. Again, he believes that it was lies and hate on Facebook that played a key role in causing the killing.
“It really does. Irrespective of reality, because people do not have the ability to verify what was posted on Facebook. Like calling people to kill Tigrinya speaking residents – as a result of hatred and revenge feelings … You don’t even know who is killing you, who is detaining you and who is looting your property. It’s total lawlessness.”
😈 Wherever Evil Abiy Ahmed Goes, He Leaves a Path of Death & Destruction
😈 ጂኒው አብይ አህመድ በሄደበት ሁሉ የሞት እና የጥፋት መንገድን ጥሎ ይሄዳል
⏰ It’s The Year 2022 ⏰
The Felicity Ace caught ablaze on Wednesday and 22 of its crew members were airlifted to safety
There are 4,000 cars on board the ship including 189 Bentleys, 1,100 Porsches and multiple Lamborghinis
The cargo ship was carrying vehicles from Emden, Germany, to Davisville, Rhode Island
Lithium-ion batteries in the electric cars have caught fire and require specialist equipment to extinguish
None of 22 crew members hurt after vessel with almost 4,000 VW group cars onboard caught fire
A burning ship carrying almost 4,000 cars – including 1,100 Porsches – has been drifting in the mid-Atlantic after the vessel’s 22 crew members were evacuated, the Portuguese navy has said.
The ship Felicity Ace, which was carrying a number of Volkswagen Group vehicles from Germany to the US, caught fire near the Azores on Wednesday evening, a VW spokesperson said on Friday.
None of the crew members evacuated on Wednesday were hurt, Portugal’s navy said.
About 1,100 cars were on board, according to a Porsche spokesperson. Audi said some of its vehicles were also on the specialised car-transport vessel but did not state how many.
An internal email from Volkswagen US said the ship was carrying 3,965 vehicles of the VW, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini brands, the German newspaper Handelsblatt reported.
An automotive enthusiast website, The Drive, reported the ship was carrying 189 Bentleys. The luxury British carmaker is owned by Volkswagen.
Volkswagen did not confirm the number of cars and said it was awaiting further information.
A picture shared by the Portuguese maritime authority on its website on Wednesday showed clouds of smoke billowing from the ship.
Felicity Ace was travelling from Emden,where Volkswagen has a factory, to Davisville, Rhode Island, according to the website Marine Traffic.
The fire is active but under control, the captain of the port of Horta on the Azorean island of Faial told the Portuguese news agency Lusa on Thursday night.
Azorean authorities were not immediately available for comment.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 18, 2022
💭 Planespotters sometimes get a ribbing but one man’s enthusiastic efforts documenting the battles of pilots to land at Heathrow in Storm Eunice on Friday has earned him a worldwide fan club. With a breathless, but knowledgeable commentary Big Jet TV – which normally specialises in what most people would regard as the fairly dull comings and goings from one of Europe’s busiest airports – is providing a ringside seat to a day of high drama. Viewers are tuning into Jerry Dyer’s channel on YouTube in their thousands as he livestreams dramatic scenes of passenger jets being buffeted side to side as pilots struggle to land them safely. It makes for strangely riveting viewing and, as more and more people have shared the link, his followers have rocketed. More than 190,000 people at any one time are logged onto his YouTube channel on Friday, with Mr Dyer providing a dramatic account of crews’ efforts as planes queue above the airport to land.
😈 Wherever Evil Abiy Ahmed Goes, He Leaves a Path of Death & Destruction
😈 ጂኒው አብይ አህመድ በሄደበት ሁሉ የሞት እና የጥፋት መንገድን ጥሎ ይሄዳል
[የዮሐንስ ወንጌል ምዕራፍ ፲፥፲]
“ሌባው ሊሰርቅና ሊያርድ ሊያጠፋም እንጂ ስለ ሌላ አይመጣም”
[John 10:10]
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy”
💭 EU Invites + AI Protests Egypt’s Al-Sisi-s visit in Brussels, but Not Genocider Abiy Ahmed’s | Wow!
✞ Genocide against Christian Tigray, Ethiopia. ✞
Jihadists + Genociders in Brussels
☆ Abiy Ahmed Ali
☆ Ahmed Shide
☆ Redwan Hussein
Shame on you, Europe!
Shame on you, Amnesty International: Flag carrier of hypocrite human rights Industry!
War Criminal Abiy Ahmed Told by The EU to Lift the state of emergency to Enable him to Participate at EU – AU Summit tomorrow? It would be a big shame if The EU decided to invite this evil monster to Brussels.
☆ February 15, 2022 Ethiopia’s monkey parliament has voted for an early end to a six-month state of emergency, which was imposed in last November as Tigray forces fighting the government and their allies advanced towards the capital Addis Ababa.
☆ February 17, 2022 Oromo war criminal monster was invited to join the leaders of the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) at the sixth European Union – African Union summit in Brussels.
➡ Coincidence? I don’t think so! They are all conspiring together. They behaved the same way in the former Yugoslavia against Orthodox Serbia.
May be the EU are content with the evil deeds of genocider Abiy Ahmed Ali. They might even allow him to take the seat on the infamous seat No. 666 in the European Parliament chamber in both Brussels and Strasbourg. Could the European Union really be a precursor to Antichrist’s rule?
[Matthew 23:23] “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law–justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
😈 Everything Evil Abiy Ahmed Touches Dies
💭 The Siege of Ottawa & The Siege of Tigray : No Coincidence! የኦታዋ እና የትግራይ ከበባ፡ በአጋጣሚ አይደለም!
💭 A few meters from the European Council in Brussels, nationals of Ethiopia, DRC and Comoros living in Belgium and coming from other European countries all had the same objective to hunt down their respective corrupt criminal politicians like this.
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Addis Ethiopia Weblog 