Political Communication Vis--vis Anti-terrorism Laws The Case Of Ethiopia

Ethiopia uses legislation as one way of counterterrorism. This legislation is “Anti-rnTerrorism Proclamation; Proclamation Number 652/2009.” Against its principal aim ofrnpreventing every intent and act of terrorism, some claim that the law shackles thernpolitical communication in the country. The primary purpose of the study was to explorernthe impacts of the law on political communication as practiced by various political partiesrnand media organizations.rnIn attempting to explore the impacts of the law, the Spiral of Silence and Media PoliticsrnTheories were used as theoretical framework of the study. Media-terrorism relationsrnmodel was also employed to support the analysis.rnThe study is entirely qualitative method in which some political parties and print mediarnorganizations were purposively selected for the analysis. Accordingly, nine multi-ethnicrnpolitical parties: Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front, All Ethiopia UnityrnivrnOrganization, Ethiopian Democratic Party, Ethiopian Social Democratic-South CoalitionrnUnity Party, Ethiopian Raie Party, Coalition for Unity and Democracy, EthiopianrnDemocratic Union, Unity for Democracy and Justice and Blue Party were selected. Sevenrnmedia organizations: Addis Zemen, The Reporter, Addis Admas, Ethio-Mihidar, AddisrnGuday, Fact and Lomi were also selected for the study. Semi-structured interview withrnrepresentatives of political parties and media organizations and textual data obtainedrnfrom the publications were used in the study. The textual data collected from thernpublications were stories and features ran from 8 July 2013- 10 October 2013.rnThis study has found out that the Ethiopian Anti-Terrorism Proclamation affects thernpolitical communication by further weakening the already weak political communicationrnby repressing opposition political parties and media organizations. The law suppressesrnopposition political parties by restricting political space, intimidating members andrnsupporters as well as through routine surveillance. Similarly, the law affects the politicalrncommunication of media by pressurizing journalists, challenging access to informationrnand intensifying self-censorship. However, the study has found out that all the existingrnproblems of political communications should not be considered as the byproduct of thernproclamation.

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