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Zone 9 bloggers
The Zone 9 bloggers (Amharic: የዞን 9 ብሎገሮች, romanized: yezoni zet’enyi bilogerochi) are a blogging collective from Ethiopia, who maintain a blog in Amharic. On 25 and 26 April 2014, the Ethiopian government arrested six members of the Zone 9 bloggers network and three other journalists, who faced terrorism charges for their writing at the time. The action had sparked an online protest.
They were additionally charged with conspiracy for using basic online encryption tools that journalists routinely use to protect their sources. The arrested bloggers and journalists received training in digital security from the Tactical Technology Collective / Front Line Defenders Security in a Box program.
Ethiopia's constitution explicitly protects freedom of speech and the right to privacy, yet the media is controlled by the government. Although the Internet is harder to censor than broadcast or print, the government has exercised control by jailing those who use the Internet to communicate critically about social or political issues in the country. There is only one Internet service provider (ISP) in Ethiopia, Ethio telecom, and it is owned by the government. Also in 2012, Ethio telecom blocked access to the Tor network, which lets users browse the Internet anonymously and access blocked websites.
On 8 and 9 July 2015, five of the bloggers were released from prison and all charges against them were dropped.
In 2015, the Zone 9 bloggers were awarded the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Zone 9 got its name from an Ethiopian state prison in Addis Ababa called commonly known as Kaliti maximum security prison, which has eight zones. The bloggers, who felt that Ethiopia was becoming a bigger prison (Zone 9), named themselves Zone9ers. The group's motto is "We Blog Because We Care."
The arrest of the Zone 9 bloggers occurred on April 25, 2014, two days after they announced that they would resume blogging on the Zone 9 blog after a silence of nearly six months.
In November 2015, the Zone 9 bloggers were awarded the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Similarly, in November 2015 the collective was awarded Reporters Without Borders' Citizen Journalism Award. Furthermore, in October 2016, the group was nominated as one of the finalists of the 2016 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.
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Zone 9 bloggers
The Zone 9 bloggers (Amharic: የዞን 9 ብሎገሮች, romanized: yezoni zet’enyi bilogerochi) are a blogging collective from Ethiopia, who maintain a blog in Amharic. On 25 and 26 April 2014, the Ethiopian government arrested six members of the Zone 9 bloggers network and three other journalists, who faced terrorism charges for their writing at the time. The action had sparked an online protest.
They were additionally charged with conspiracy for using basic online encryption tools that journalists routinely use to protect their sources. The arrested bloggers and journalists received training in digital security from the Tactical Technology Collective / Front Line Defenders Security in a Box program.
Ethiopia's constitution explicitly protects freedom of speech and the right to privacy, yet the media is controlled by the government. Although the Internet is harder to censor than broadcast or print, the government has exercised control by jailing those who use the Internet to communicate critically about social or political issues in the country. There is only one Internet service provider (ISP) in Ethiopia, Ethio telecom, and it is owned by the government. Also in 2012, Ethio telecom blocked access to the Tor network, which lets users browse the Internet anonymously and access blocked websites.
On 8 and 9 July 2015, five of the bloggers were released from prison and all charges against them were dropped.
In 2015, the Zone 9 bloggers were awarded the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Zone 9 got its name from an Ethiopian state prison in Addis Ababa called commonly known as Kaliti maximum security prison, which has eight zones. The bloggers, who felt that Ethiopia was becoming a bigger prison (Zone 9), named themselves Zone9ers. The group's motto is "We Blog Because We Care."
The arrest of the Zone 9 bloggers occurred on April 25, 2014, two days after they announced that they would resume blogging on the Zone 9 blog after a silence of nearly six months.
In November 2015, the Zone 9 bloggers were awarded the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Similarly, in November 2015 the collective was awarded Reporters Without Borders' Citizen Journalism Award. Furthermore, in October 2016, the group was nominated as one of the finalists of the 2016 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.
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