💭 Seven weeks ago a truce was called but there are still no way nowhere near enough supplies getting into the region only one convoy of 17 trunks of humanitarian assistance crossed into Tigray last week carrying food and water and sanitation supplies. Current supplies of food are too little to sustain life.
The health system has collapsed, people are starving to death and it is intentional. Things are so bad that journalists can not even access the region, removing the world’s eyes to what’s happening.
I Ask The Ethiopian And Eritrean Governments To End The Siege Now get supplies into the region on a regular and sustainable basis and work for peace.
💭 MARTIAL LAW for The First Time in Canada’s History | Welcome to Chinada!
💭 ወታደራዊ ሕግ በ ካናዳ? | ወደ ቻይናዳ እንኳን ደህና መጡ!
😈 Everything Evil Abiy Ahmed Touches Dies
😈 አረመኔው ግራኝ የነካው ሁሉ ይሞታል
The disgraced Prime Minister of Canada Justin ‘Castro’ Trudeau says he’s invoking the Emergencies Act (Canadian Martial Law) for the first time in Canada’s history to give the federal government temporary powers to handle ongoing blockades and protests against pandemic restrictions.
A huge solar storm is reported to be heading towards the Earth as per the National Aeronautics Space Agency’s (NASA) latest report. The report also suggested that the solar storm has a very high chance of colliding with the Earth’s atmosphere on Monday (March 28), however, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) believes that the solar storm could enter the Earth’s atmosphere a few hours early (around 6 am on Monday).
While space operations are expected to be disrupted by the solar storm which has erupted on the Sun’s surface, the functioning of satellites orbiting around the Earth’s surface is also expected to witness some problems. While a bright glow is expected to be seen in the areas around the UK, Dr Tamitha Skov, known for her space forecasts, shared her views on the solar storm’s collision with Earth and stated that the effects could reach the ‘mid-latitudes’. Furthermore, she even stated that the people living in New York, Southern New Zealand and Tasmania could see the northern light in the dark.
Billy Tates, an astronomer from the University of Tennessee, added that the solar storm can have an illuminating effect in the Earth’s atmosphere, but at the same time could also affect the navigation systems. Raising a warning to all, NOAA shared a statement that read: While storms create beautiful auroras, they can also disrupt navigation systems such as the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and create harmful geomagnetic currents (GICs) in the electrical grid and channels.
While a small magnetic storm was experienced last month, it ended up destroying several SpaceX Starlink satellites, orbiting around the Earth’s surface.
💭 Ethiopian Jews Can’t Get The Same Embrace From Israel as Ukrainians
👉 Courtesy: Ynetnews
Opinion: Ukraine crisis is clear evidence of a racial imbalance in how the world responds to tragedies; while many open their doors to Europeans, few do so when it comes to refugees from Ethiopia, or other countries with populations of color
The past few days I couldn’t stop crying about the situation in Ukraine. Watching the news, reading articles and hearing reports took me to dark moments in my past. My heart broke to see people being victims again in a war that they did not choose to be part of.
I have watched videos of fathers saying goodbye to their children, mothers trying to save their babies. When I watch the news it invokes painful memories of my own childhood, of my family’s history. I don’t remember the experience of escaping civil war and famine in Ethiopia as a child. However, I heard and learned about it over the course of my childhood through my father, my family and my community. With the very limited information that I had, I began to piece together the true history of my people.
I only had a few years of happy home memories before everything changed forever. This was after my family and I escaped, in 1990, from a war-torn Ethiopia where Jews were targeted, and settled in Israel, in the town of Beit She’an. My fondest memories are of gathering around the dinner table, talking about our days and laughing at my father’s jokes. I was too young to realize the realities of being a refugee and the racism around me. I was in a naive reality, before the horrors of the world were to enter my life.
My father got sick when I was still very young. I was around 10 years old when I heard him cry for the first time. I didn’t understand why, but the more I listened carefully the more I started to hear him. He repeated one name so often that I had to ask someone in my family who it might be. It was his nephew, who was killed in front of my father by agents of the Derg junta as my father watched, unable to do anything to save him.
The world around me shattered. I learned that the world is a cruel place, and that there are people who are meant to suffer unfathomable things when they don’t deserve it because of disconnected leaders with selfish agendas.
I was overwhelmed and overjoyed, then, to see how the world came together in condemning and isolating Russian President Vladimir Putin for what he is doing to Ukraine. The way Israel and the world acted so quickly to help Ukrainians to escape, and to help others to fight the war alongside them, was nothing short of extraordinary. When people started to advocate for Ukraine, I joined. I changed my profile picture on social media to the Ukrainian flag.
A few days later, however, someone from my Ethiopian community asked why I didn’t post the Ethiopian flag, when the government there has recently and regularly targeted civilians in a 16-month-old war against rebellious forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
I was ashamed. I had done what many white people do: I had brushed off what happened to my people, to Africa, to the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America. Why does the survival of one country matter more than another’s? Why does one group of people have more value than another?
When I realized my mistake, I felt rage and the urge to do something about it. I started to do research, make phone calls, ask questions. I reached out to everyone I knew in order to find out more about what is happening in Ethiopia and what we are doing about it.
There is clear evidence of a racial imbalance in how we respond to tragedies, not just in Israel but throughout the world. Many countries have opened their doors to the Ukrainian people, but not to refugees from Ethiopia, or other countries with populations of color.
Despite a pledge to speed up its evacuations of some of the relatives of Ethiopian Israelis who remain in the country in the midst of an escalating civil war, the Israeli government seems to be making it more difficult for Ethiopian Jews to make it into Israel. Case in point: The Israeli High Court has frozen the planned entrance of 7,000-12,000 Ethiopians into the country for more than a month. Meanwhile, the same government is preparing to receive several thousand Jewish Ukrainians, and to take in 5,000 non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees.
Preventing these Ethiopians from entering Israel keeps them in harm’s way while their case gets reviewed by the High Court, and it’s all because of those in Israel who question the Jewishness of those individuals. Ukrainians of any faith are rushed in, while Ethiopians of Jewish heritage are kept out.
The Ukrainian conflict is a perfect example of the world’s hypocrisy. It shows how little Black and brown skin matters. The voices of other refugees aren’t shared on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. War in Ethiopia and other countries is not as appealing to the international media.
But it’s up to each one of us to be their voice. We’re seeing big companies, sports teams, celebrities and governments boycotting Russia and blocking Putin in every way they can. But my wish is that the world will also treat Black and dark-skinned people the way they treat those who are white. A world, for example, that won’t stand for border guards in a war-torn Ukraine preventing brown students from fleeing the country while allowing white Ukrainians to get out.
What is happening in Ukraine is appalling, and we should all absolutely unite to fight oppression and murder any time it happens, but we can’t only do this when it is appealing to our racial or economic biases. Ethiopia is worthy of our time; all suffering around the world is worthy of our time. If we cared about human life more than we care about oil and military spheres of influence and our own racial biases, there would be less suffering in this world.
Let’s be a megaphone for the voices that have been drowned out.
💭 In the video, armed men burning civilians to death in Western Ethiopia. Some of the men in the crowd are wearing Ethiopian military uniforms as well as uniforms from other regional security forces.
[Leviticus 18:21]
„Never give your children as sacrifices to the god Molech by burning them alive. If you do, you are dishonoring the name of your Elohim. I am Yahweh.”
The Bible instructs believers that the AntiChrist Beast will first come in as a Peacemaker who will have the ability to get Israel (New Testament Orthodox Christian Nations) to sign a seven year peace treaty, which will enable them to build a third Temple at Jerusalem in exchange for allowing their “former” enemies to move into their neighborhoods and live together as “friendly” neighbors.
[Daniel 11:21]
And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
Daniel 11:21 says that the Antichrist will “come in peaceably”. Many Christians think that this means that the Antichrist will be received as a great peace maker or even be accepted as a Jewish Messiah. I don’t think that the Bible tells us that the Antichrist will be received as a Jewish Messiah. Although he may already be being received as a Muslim Mahdi.
Daniel describes a leader who will come in “come in peaceably”. This is first applied to Antiochous Epiphanies. Antiochous Epiphanies was a prince in the Seleucid dynasty. The Seleucid dynasty ruled over one quarter of the Grecian Empire and ruled from Antioch of Syria. Antiochous Epiphanies’ brother was the king over the Seleucid dynasty. Antiochous Epiphanies’ brother was imprisoned in Egypt. While the king was in prison, the king’s infant son was made king. Antiochous Epiphanies proclaimed himself as co-regent with the young boy and then killed his brother’s son making himself sole ruler over the Seleucid dynasty. So Antiochous Epiphanies became king by treacherous means. That’s what the word “flatteries” means at the end of Dan 11:21. Antiochous Epiphanies became king without military conquest. He gained power “peaceably”.
Dan 11:21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
Now that you have had our Bible history lesson let’s see what Daniel says about future events. Most Bible teachers also apply Daniel 11:21 to the actions of the coming Antichrist.
In the past seven years Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who actually is of Georgian ancestry has gained absolute authority over Turkey. He did so in 2014 by changing the Turkish constitution and eliminating the position of Prime Minister in Turkey. Ezekiel 38:1-3 say’s that the “chief prince” or primary governor of Turkey will lead the Islamic nations into Israel. In Ezekiel chapter 39 the “chief prince” of Turkey will lead the battle of Armageddon. So the Bible tells us that the “chief prince” of Turkey is the Antichrist. Since Turkish President Erdogan has eliminated any future Prime Minister in Turkey, then Erdogan will be the only primary governor of Turkey in the foreseeable future. I think that Turkish President Erdogan is in fact the Antichrist. He has already come to power by way of treachery and without military conquest, or “peaceably”. Erdogan will one day also rise to power over the next world empire. Erdogan is already recognized by most Islamic nations as the rightful Sultan over a revived Turkish ruled Ottoman Empire.
Many Christians have a fuzzy notion that the Antichrist will be viewed as a great peace maker. Not necessarily so. In reality the Antichrist will gain power by devious political means.
👉 Thursday Mar 10th, 2022 – Revelation 17:12 The 10 horns
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Turkey on Thursday.
😈 Turkey, an Islamic nation trying to broker peace between Orthodox Christian brothers of Russia and Ukraine?
Antichrist Turkey and The UAE countries that have directly participated in the #TigrayGenocide by supporting the fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia, now are trying to play a more active role in ‘mediating’ between the fascist Oromo regime of Abiy Ahmed Ali and Orthodox Christian Ethiopia which is Tigray. Countries like the UAE, Turkey, China, Russia,Ukraine support the Ethiopian central government with political, diplomatic, financial help and drones in its offensive against Orthodox Christians of Tigray. Mind boggling, isn’t it?!
💭 Similar circumstances, similar actions and actors, similar tragedies between the Russo-Ukraine war and the Ethiopian ‘civil war’.
Ethiopia managed to survive as a single state from the Aksum Kingdom (325 BC) to the reign of the fascist Oromo regime of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali. The country was not divided into two states in the civil war that broke out due to the Tigray problem. On the other hand, there are some similarities between the Ukraine and Ethiopia crises, such as the relations between the warring parties and the fact that they come from the same origin. So, can such closeness be a factor that stops or fuels a war?
Approaches
Ukraine, which gained its independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is now the second largest country in Europe with a population of 44.9 million. The country has extensive agricultural lands as well as fields for many heavy industry sectors in its east. Both Russian and Ukrainian are spoken in the country. There are many social and political partnerships between the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, as well as their histories, structures, common customs and traditions. Despite the fact that the peoples of the two countries have a common history, culture and religion, after the independence of Ukraine, its relations with its western neighbors developed more than its relations with Russia. Ukraine enjoys closer relations with its European neighbors in Poland and other regions to its west.
On the other hand, the Tigray region is located in the north of Ethiopia. An independent territory within the federal system, ratified by the Ethiopian Constitution in 1994. The history of the region has striking marital dimensions. There are abundant mineral deposits, especially gold. The Tigrayans are Ethiopia’s third largest ethnic group (7 to 10 million people) in terms of population, after the Oromos and Amhars, who make up the majority of Ethiopian people. Although the Tigrayans and Oromos retain their own language, Amharic has been the dominant language among the Ethiopian people, with Christianity and Islam, the two major religions with the largest number of members.
On a regional scale and in contrast to the polarization factor and the attractiveness of Ukraine’s neighborhood with Western European countries, Tigray’s location adjacent to Eritrea creates a political dimension that is not far from sensitive for historical rivalry reasons, despite the similarities and commonalities of the two peoples.
Beginning of crises
As for the beginnings, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine started after the Ukrainian people’s revolution overthrew the pro-Russian former President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. After Russia lost its political hegemony with the fall of Yanukovych administration, Russia annexed Crimea using this situation and started to arm the rebel groups in the east of the country.
The danger that Ukraine posed for Russia after its independence and its orientation to Europe further increased the sensitivity of relations. The crisis erupted in its political and regional dimensions following Kiev’s intention to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The crisis in Ethiopia, on the other hand, began after the political transformation during the ruling People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front following the people’s revolution in February 2018, with the resignation of former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. On 27 March 2018, current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office, with the decline of Tigrayan nationalism after nearly 30 years of domination and the political crisis in Abiy Ahmed and the neighboring country Eritrea.
💭 Ethiopia Declares State of Emergency as Tigrayan Forces Gain Ground
Bitter experiences
There were news in the media that Russia began to occupy Ukraine from the eastern Donbas region on February 24, 2020) (after the recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics). These were followed by reports that cities such as Mariupol (please look at map in the video below) and Odessa (on the Black Sea coast), Kherson (in the south of the country), Jitomir and Kharkov (in the northwest) were subjected to heavy bombardment. In the current war, military and civilian infrastructure has been destroyed in many parts of Ukraine. Several cities were occupied while services such as water and electricity were interrupted.
According to the information in the press, while people in various regions of Ukraine faced terrible situations, hundreds of civilians, including children, lost their lives, hundreds of thousands of people immigrated to Poland and other neighboring European countries.
On the other hand, the Ethiopian war, which started on November 4, 2020, (The genocidal war against Orthodox Christians of Tigray begun on Tikimt-ጥቅምት 24 ቀን 2013 ዓ.ም EC ) caused the Tigray region to be occupied by the fascist Oromo regime of Abiy Ahmed Ali and killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced only in beginning of the war tens of thousands to migrate to Sudan. Unlike Ukraine, no Tigrayan is able to leave Tigray due to a complete siege and blockade during the past twelve months.
💭 Ukrainians Blocking Africans From Getting on Trains | ዩክሬናውያን አፍሪካውያንን በባቡር እንዳይሳፈሩ አገዷቸው
A Very curious comparison: White ‘Christian’ Ukrainians block Africans from getting on European trains – while black African Christians of Ethiopia hinder their Tigrayans brothers and sisters from fleeing the besieged Tigray to safety, to Sudan. Wow! Do Africans really have the right to complain about the actions of the Ukrainians, or about the preferential treatment fellow Europeans give to them? Can Africans claim the moral high ground when they are still quite and do nothing while their brothers and sisters in Africa are barbarically abused, murdered and ethnically cleansed by fellow Africans for the past 15 months?! What a disgrace!
One other example: Headquarters of the African Union (AU) is in Addis Ababa, but protocol dictates that when a summit is held there — as it was last month — the host is the AU Commission itself, not Ethiopia. In breach of that principle, the AU invited monster war criminal Abiy Ahmed Ali to welcome Africa’s heads of state. The thematic focus of the summit was launching Africa’s “year of nutrition.” Cruel Abiy Ahmed Ali and every speaker spoke about the importance of food; none mentioned the starvation crimes perpetrated by their host in Tigray, even in passing. The AU’s own principles were tossed aside in a show of smug solidarity.
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.
💭 Russian President Vladimir Putin: If Ukraine created by the Bolsheviks wants genuine de-communization, this will suit Russia. 👏👏👏
Russian President Vladimir Putin justified backing the separatist regions in conflict with Ukraine Monday in a speech containing claims that former Russian leaders Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin wrongfully gave Ukraine the land.
In his speech, Putin announced Russia would recognize the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic. The Russian president’s announcement comes after years of fighting in the Donbas region and while it’ll stoke fierce criticism from the west, Putin argued the area rightfully belongs to Russia.
While Putin didn’t outright declare war on Ukraine, he railed against the belief Ukraine was a separate entity from Russia. He said Ukraine was built by Russia and has little to no culture or identity outside of Russia.
“Let’s start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia, more precisely, by the Bolshevik, communist Russia. This process began almost immediately after the 1917 revolution,” Putin said on Monday.
Putin added that Lenin, who rose to power after the downfall of the Romanov royal family, was the “author and creator” of Ukraine. He said Lenin made a “mistake” when the Bolsheviks gave land to Ukraine but claimed they did so to stay in power no matter what. He also blamed Stalin for transferring to Ukraine “some lands that previously belonged to Poland, Romania and Hungary.”
“And in 1954, for some reason, [former President Nikita] Khrushchev took Crimea from Russia and gave it to Ukraine. Actually, this is how the territory of Soviet Ukraine was formed,” Putin said.
Putin made a similar argument last summer when he called Russians and Ukrainians “one people.” He accused Ukrainian leaders of imposing Ukrainization on “those who did not see themselves as Ukrainian. The Russian president also said Bolsheviks bestowed generous “territorial gifts” because they “dreamt of a world revolution that would wipe out national states.”
“It is no longer important what exactly the idea of the Bolshevik leaders who were chopping the country into pieces was. We can disagree about minor details, background and logics behind certain decisions. One fact is crystal clear: Russia was robbed, indeed,” Putin wrote in the summer essay.
Ahead of his formal remarks on Monday, Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of his intentions to support the independent states of Donetsk and Luhansk. Both European leaders expressed disappointment with the development, according to the Kremlin, and some officials fear it could be the catalyst for a large-scale war.
Additionally, Putin used the speech to accuse the United States of trying to contain Russia’s growth and just using Ukraine as an excuse to sanction Russia. He said he sees “no end” to the violence in the Donbas region and claimed the country tried to resolve the conflict, but everything was “done in vain.”
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.”