Urael

After a couple of weeks that Seminawork and Lewit at blogspot.com were available in Ethiopia, it looks like it they are blocked again. Not that it is a real problem. Through various proxy and duplicate sites we can enjoy their news, views and comments on Ethiopian politics and life. The thing you wonder about is why this on and off policy of the people that govern the Ethiopian Telecom blocking department. Is it because technicians are sabotaging the system and just tell the bosses that something went wrong? Or are they gathering information on who and where people are reading the subversive news? Or is it just plain stupidity.
The weeks that the blogspot sites were not blocked, the internet in Ethiopia was considerable slower than the usual also not fantastic speed. This changed this week, normal instead of extreme turtle speed again, and the blogspot sites are blocked again. This would support the assumption that they are eavesdropping on the internet traffic and mapping the behavior of their customers. It would not surprise me.

It looks like they now took radical measures with even blocking meskelsquare from the always moderate Andrew Heavens. So they are blocking his website but allow him to be the Reuter’s correspondent in Ethiopia. The whole blocking program is not aimed at the authors but at the readers it seems.

It might be, as the other site lewit blogged this week, you need hope, that the pressure of releasing the political prisoners is coming and they are desperately trying to hide it from us. Forget it banda! We will know immediately because we are smarter with this medium than you are, and we will shout it from every rooftop