African Union Conference Center and Office Complex

prison, used during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, and subsequently by Haile Selassie and Mengistu Haile Mariam to house political prisoners. The decision to construct the AU headquarters on this former prison grounds was criticized by survivors, as they were disappointed by the AU's lack of acknowledgement of the torture used on the site. ==Facilities==

The headquarters comprise a 20-story office building, housing the administrative departments of the African Union Commission; a 2,505-person-capacity plenary chamber; and a sub-conference building with 32 conference rooms. ==Espionage allegations==

In January 2018, six years after the opening of the AUCC, a report in the African edition of Le Monde, confirmed by the Financial Times, claimed that the AU's IT department had discovered in early 2017 that the site's computer systems were connecting nightly to servers in Shanghai and uploading AU files as well as recordings from microphones embedded in the walls and furniture. The building's computer system was subsequently removed and the AU refused a Chinese offer to configure the replacement system. Le Monde alleged that the AU had then covered up the hack to protect Chinese interests in the continent. Moussa Faki Mahamat, head of the African Union Commission, said the allegations in the Le Mondes report were false. "These are totally false allegations and I believe that we are completely disregarding them." Incoming Chairperson of the African Union Paul Kagame said he did not know anything about it. Following the allegations, the African Union signed a further Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)s to expand their technology partnership with Huawei in February 2022. Commentary Writing in 2024, academics Christopher Foster et al. note that the allegations generated more interest in the global north countries than in Africa. ==See also==