The Chinese government is facing accusations that it has helped block news websites in Ethiopia and jammed Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) and other broadcasters, including the Voice of America and German's Deutsche Welle Amharic services. After the successful uprisings against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali through demonstrations coordinated in part via news websites and social media networks earlier this year, reprisals against similar anti-regime movements are taking place in countries including Libya, Syria and Uganda.In Ethiopia, the People's Republic of China has been providing training, technology and technical assistance to the regime to enable it to jam ESAT's transmission, according to Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association (EFJA) President Kifle Mulat. ESAT has just resumed transmission to Ethiopia after nearly two months of interruption.

Mulat said that stifling freedom of expression and undermining efforts to spread democratic values in Ethiopia by China sets a bad precedent in the whole of Africa.

"EFJA is seriously concerned over the collaboration of oppressive regimes to make life difficult not only for media organizations and journalists but also ordinary citizens who are denied a voice in their own country," said Mulat in a statement.

"ESAT continued transmitting on Intelsat, an [American] satellite company. While diplomatic effort to disrupt ESAT transmission failed, the regime managed to jam ESAT's signals using the jamming equipment provided by the Chinese government," Mulat added.

Chinese government officials in Beijing and Africa declined to comment when asked for their reaction to these accusations. When asked to comment, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing said he did not understand the question.

ESAT, with studios in Amsterdam, Washington, D.C., and London, was set up last year by a group of exiled Ethiopian journalists and pro-democracy activists to create an alternative media outlet for the people of Ethiopia.

Over the past year, ESAT has been forced to change satellite service providers at least four times. ESAT started broadcasting to Ethiopia on Arabsat, headquartered in Saudi Arabia, but was forced off the air due to intense signal interference and diplomatic pressure by the Ethiopian government.

"We have difficulties accessing local websites based in Ethiopia or outside the country, which cover sensitive matters about the Ethiopian government," wrote Eden Habtamu, a journalist who works for New Business Ethiopia, in an e-mail exchange June 28.

In the wake of popular uprisings taking place in other African countries and the Middle East, the Ethiopian government has cracked down on freedom of expression, exiling and imprisoning journalists and pro-democracy advocates. The EFJA's Mulat is among those who have been exiled.

The government of China, Mulat said, should realize that collaborating with African tyrants and exporting tools of repression to countries like Ethiopia is an act that will further tarnish the image of China.

"Although the spreading of the demonstrations has now slowed down, many African presidents are still living in fear as we hear them condemn the demonstrations everyday," said Edith Mwale, a telecom analyst from African Center for ICT Development. "China will do everything possible in any African country to protect its investment and business interests," she added.

Chinese companies have a recent history of being charged with corruption in telecom bids taking place in countries including Zambia, Uganda and Sierra Leone. In 2009, the Ugandan government suspended the buildout of fiber-optics by Huawei Technologies because of corruption allegations.

The EFJA's accusation comes less than a month after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern that China's foreign assistance and investment in Africa have not been consistent with generally accepted international norms of transparency and good governance.

In 2009 alone, China pumped $10 billion in investment and development into Africa's telecom and extraction industries, making China the largest single investor in Africa. In Ethiopia, China is financing via loans a US$1.5 billion Ethiopian Millennium Project, described by African telecom analysts as the largest information and communication technology (ICT) project to be financed by China in Africa. Additionally, China also financed a project to create a fiber-optic transmission backbone across the country in order to expand the cellular GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) network, with an estimated 8.5 million new connections.

Clinton also said that the U.S. was concerned that China's quick economic push into Africa risks disturbing efforts to help the region develop a more mature and transparent economy.