If you happen to use Skype in the country of Ethiopia, well ... don't. TechCrunch reports that a few weeks ago, the Ethiopian government passed a law that bans the use of Skype and any other VOIP service such as Google Talk in that part of the world. Not only that, but the story claims that the government could put people in jail for up to 15 years if they are caught using a VOIP service. There's no word as to how the government could enforce such a ban.

The ban was actually put in place on May 24th but is only now being reported on in the media. The story points out that Ethiopia's leaders already have set up some very high restrictions as far as Internet connections in that country. There's just one ISP in Ethiopia, Ethio Telecom, but it is fully under the state's control.

In addition, the government has also given itself the authority "to supervise and issue licenses to all privately owned companies that import equipment used for the communication of information." While the country has 84 million citizens, it is estimated by the Internet censorship watchdog OpenNet Initiative that just 700,000 of them have any kind of Internet access.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/14/ethiopian-government-bans-skype-google-talk-and-all-other-voip-services/

funny country. Use to think this country had the oldest democracy in africa. Fucking silly country with beautiful dumb people

And no reason was given for the ban.

samfibby: funny country. Use to think this country had the oldest democracy in africa. Fucking silly country with beautiful dumb people

stfu dump bantu!

Lol

samfibby: funny country. Use to think this country had the oldest democracy in africa. Fucking silly country with beautiful dumb people

Hahahha, you are funny. There was no democracy in Ethiopia in the past as it was in feudalism and then socialist dictatorship. Ethiopia has 3,000 years recorded history. The past generation was never dumb as they were able to protect the country's sovereignty while the rest of Africa was being scrambled. Actually, it is among the few countries in the world that was never colonized and one of the two countries never colonized in Africa.

Ethiopia had to fight and defeat colonial powers like Italy and Egypt (later became colony of Britain). Italy, that colonized Libya, Eritrea, and parts of Somalia was fully defeated in 1896 and had to sign a treaty respecting Ethiopia's sovereignty and pay compensation. Egypt's attack in three direction also failed as they were defeated in all directions.

Ethiopia played diplomatic game with France and Britain to maintain its Independence by exploiting their rivalry. Mind you this was in late 1890s and early 1900. One of the countries that was never colonized is Liberia. Liberia didn't have to protect itself from colonization by war as it was protected by the USA.

So, this history of Ethiopia doesn't show that the people are dumb. To just know in what kind of situation Ethiopia is now, just investigate on which other countries blocks or heavily filters internet in the world. Then you will find out those people are not dumb. That happened because their government are known for oppressing their people. Mind you, the people are not dumb or oppressors, it is their government that is paranoid and oppressor.

They also aired the government official news conference in local TV.