Ethiopia

The CIVICUS Monitor downgrades Ethiopia’s civic space to ‘Closed’ amid the continuing armed conflict

December 04, 2024

The CIVICUS Monitor announced in a new report Wednesday that it has downgraded Ethiopia’s civic space to ‘Closed,’ its worst rating. The downgrade culminates a sustained assault on civil and political rights in the country.

The report, People Power Under Attack 2024, details civic space conditions in 198 countries and territories. The findings for Ethiopia show there is little space left for people to exercise their fundamental freedoms, and authorities try to stifle citizens' voices and attempts at activism in an atmosphere of hostility.

In 2024, the continuing armed conflict and imposition of state-of-emergency measures in parts of the country have resulted in serious violations of human rights and caused a decline in civic freedoms. Human rights activists, journalists and opposition members face serious challenges in their work, including physical and online surveillance, verbal harassment, intimidation and threats to try to make them stop their activities.

“This rating change is a result of a multi-year assault on civic freedoms," said Sylvia Mbataru, Africa and Middle East Researcher at the CIVICUS Monitor. “The situation is bleak, as Ethiopian authorities have completely closed the space for civil society to operate.”

The CIVICUS Monitor rates each country's civic space conditions based on data collected throughout the year from country-focused civil society activists, regionally-based research teams, international human rights indices and the Monitor's own in-house experts. The data from these four separate sources are then combined to assign each country a rating as either ‘Open,’ ‘Narrowed,’ ‘Obstructed,’ ‘Repressed’ or ‘Closed.’

Ethiopia’s score puts it among 29 other countries in the worst category: ‘Closed.’ Globally, this year’s report finds that nearly a third of humanity, or 30% of the world’s population, now lives in ‘Closed’ societies, the most restrictive possible environments.

Meanwhile, just over 3% of people live in ‘Open’ countries, where civic space is both free and protected, the lowest percentage yet and almost half the rate of six years ago. Together, these statistics point to a world in crisis.

In Ethiopia this year, researchers documented arbitrary detentions against journalists, including for covering the conflict in Amhara region, and threats against and shutting down of online news outlets. This year also saw the cold blooded murder of Bate Urgessa, a vocal government critic and senior official of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) - one of the biggest political parties in Ethiopia, after a fatal shooting by unidentified gunmen.

"The Ethiopian government views critical voices as the ultimate threat to their power. They use every tactic to ensure civil society and media can barely operate and sustain itself,” said Mbataru. “The result is a situation where activists feel constantly under threat."

The other downgraded countries this year are Occupied Palestinian Territory (Closed), Eswatini (Repressed), Burkina Faso (Repressed), Kenya (Repressed), Peru (Repressed), Georgia (Obstructed), Mongolia (Obstructed), The Netherlands (Narrowed).

Notes to the Editor:

The CIVICUS Monitor is a research tool that provides quantitative and qualitative data on the state of civil society and civic freedoms in 198 countries and territories. The data is generated through a collaboration with more than 20 civil society research partners, and input from a number of independent human rights evaluations. The data provides the basis for civic space ratings and countries can be rated as either 'Closed', 'Repressed', 'Obstructed', 'Narrowed' or 'Open'.

For more information or to arrange an interview please contact : media@civicus.org