Ethiopian NGO Face Awful Choice

Under a controversial new law, Ethiopia's beleaguered civil-society groups are facing an awful choice: Surrender almost all of their funding, or surrender their work on human rights and democracy.

Across the country, civil-society groups are closing offices, laying off staff and cutting back their activities because of a new law that imposes tough new limits on any group that gets more than 10 per cent of its funding from foreign sources.

Such groups are barred from working on human rights, democracy, justice, ethnicity, gender, conflict resolution, or even children's rights.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Watch has described the new law as one of the most restrictive in the world, comparable to those of Russia and Zimbabwe.

To read the article titled, “New law cripples NGOs,” click here.