By Daniel Gebremedhin
Areri
Subject: Ethiopians are
banned from using Facebook and internet access by the dictator government in
Ethiopia
Mark Zuckerberg, the chairman of the Facebook |
Mr. Zuckerberg, you are
the hope of the world and the father of globalization. You have connected the
world’s countries together. You have broken the boundary of the expensive of
both print and broadcast media by creating Facebook which is the leader of
social media. In a dictator country like Ethiopia both broadcast and print
media are owned by the government, which was not elected by the people for the
people, but elected by itself using guns. In a country like Ethiopia, people’s
voices are overridden by the wrong hands of governments. You have come with a solution
for suffocated world information. I strongly believe that our world breathes
information. Hence, your Facebook is one of the world’s lungs which helps the
world to breathe information.
In August 2016, I felt
happy when I heard news about your plan to connect the whole world and Africa
to internet access. Most African countries are held by minority dictators.
These dictators own the people and countries like their own properties although
the younger African generation is revolting against them. According to this
year’s Freedom House report, Ethiopia holds a record among the worst countries
of the world which ban access to internet, practices censorship and thwarts freedom
of information. Ethiopia ranked ahead of
Iran, Syria and China. In addition, Ethiopia cooperates with China to jam the free
flow of information and to ban access to the internet even though Ethiopia is
one of the ‘best allies’ of the West. You believe that having access to the
internet is a basic human right.
Nowadays, the number one fighter
against dictators is Facebook, because Facebook immediately exposes their evil
doings. The dictators have also targeted Facebook at their front lines. Facebook is preceding both broadcast and
print media in feeding people with information, not only in developing and dictator
countries, but also in developed countries, Thanks to mobile technologies and Facebook,
dictators’ wrong hands and bloody hands can be exposed immediately. In their
behavior, these dictators cannot live without being fake, but in the globalized
and digitalized world of Facebook, there is no place to exist by sowing
tyranny. This is why the ‘Ethiopia government’ first tried to block Facebook in
Ethiopia, but when people systematically started to use Facebook with unique
internet browsers, finally Ethiopia decided to totally close internet access. The
‘Ethiopia government’ points its finger to accuse modern technologies and Facebook;
it believes that Facebook has been playing a great role in Oromo, Amhara,
Konso, and Gedio Protests.
I strongly believe that
you came to rescue us from dictators and bloody handed governments with your
blessed plan of giving free internet access for African countries including
Ethiopia from satellite. The dictators and tyrannical governments never can
ever conquer you; Facebook and its peoples are the winner. You are the engineer
in all victories of voiceless nations of the world. I would ask you on behalf
of hundreds of millions of people, we need immediate help from you. Especially
we Ethiopians need emergency treatment in order to survive from the current State
of Emergency.
With Best Regards,
Daniel Gebremedhin Areri |