http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/VOA-Amharic/ Following the May 15, 2005 elections in Ethiopia, the demand for balanced and sufficient information has increased dramatically within Ethiopia and Ethiopians in the Diasporas. Contrary to these the ruling party in Ethiopia has revoked the licenses of Dutch Welle and VOA reporters in order to hinder the demand for a free and balanced flow of information. Concerned Ethiopians, Ethiopian-Americans and Friends of Ethiopia oppose the actions taken by the ruling EPRDF coalition on journalists and the repression of freedom of speech. Therefore we ask VOA to extend the Amharic (official Ethiopian language) weekday broadcast to one full hour so that it can satisfy the information demand of its one fifth Ethiopian adult population audience, which proportionally is the highest VOA audience. Fri, 22 Jul 2005 20:1:18 CDT en-us 3