events marking the "one love" and social justice music of late star Bob Marley, a Christian human rights group warned that the Rastafarian "holy land" is not peaceful for many Evangelical believers.
With international media reporting on the weeklong feast of love to commemorate the Reggae giant’s 60th birthday, the Voice Of the Martyrs (VOM), issued a report citing increased persecution and deadly violence against Ethiopia’s minority Evangelical Christians in rural area’s.
In a news letter sent to BosNewsLife, VOM Canada said its sources had compiled "a disturbing report" from the town of Alaba and surrounding area’s in Southern Ethiopia on "cases of severe physical abuse, confiscation and destruction of property, extortion, kidnapping, forcible marriage and the unlawful imprisonment of evangelical Christians."
VOM Canada claimed at least one Christian student, identified as Serkalem, was killed by Muslim militants on February 1 as he returned home from school. "His family has appealed to authorities but if past experience is any indication, a proper investigation is unlikely," VOM Canada added.
NO COMMENT
There was no independent confirmation of the report and Ethiopian officials have not commented on the latest allegations. However several human rights groups have in the past expressed concern about religious persecution and the apparent lack of adequate courts, BosNewsLife established.
VOM Canada said a former Muslim Imam, Hajji Husman Mohamed, his pregnant wife and other family members were also injured in violence on February 1, when militants abused everyone in their Alaba home. It suggested the events are part of religious cleansing by Muslims who it said "organized the attack" and "are now checking every vehicle entering the community to ensure that no Christians return."
Adding to the difficulties are reports that the Alaba self-governing administration has requested the national government to allow it to implement Shari’a (Islamic) law.
RELIGIOUS COURTS
Human rights workers say that given the remote nature of much of Ethiopia, the constitution adopted in 1994 enables "pre-existing religious and customary courts" to rule in for instance religious and family matters involving Muslims, while councils of elders also continue to function, VOM Canada explained.
The organization warned that this opened the road for "abuse" as "many people have no access to formal judicial systems" in the impoverished north-eastern African nation.
Ninety-nine percent of the Alaba region is Muslim, with less than one percent being Christian Orthodox or Evangelical, according to estimates.
EVANGELICAL MINORITY
Evangelicals in Ethiopia, who may account for as much as twenty percent of Ethiopia’s roughly 71-million people, face especially severe persecution, VOM sources say. Young people who convert from Islam to Christianity have reportedly been expelled from their homes and forced to live on the streets or work as house servants.
Evangelical meetings are reportedly regularly broken up by mobs who beat and occasionally kill, those gathered and Church buildings and homes of Evangelicals are known to have been destroyed by mobs.
Last year two Evangelical elders were freed after being detained for ten months on false murder charges, church sources say.
DEMOCRACY CONCERNS
The religious tension comes amid concern about democracy in the country and World Food Program claims that millions of people need urgent food. This week an opposition coalition said that five of its members were killed and 22 wounded in recent attacks by members of Ethiopia’s ruling party.
The Coalition for Unity and Democracy added that the attacks in the past month were meant to intimidate opposition leaders in the run-up to national elections set for May 15, news reports said.
Persecution of religious minorities and dissidents was not on the agenda during the Bob Marley events this week in Ethiopia, which were scheduled to end Sunday February 13 with a final concert. But the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, and other co-organizers said the Marley celebrations would at least help to bring about awareness on other issues such as poverty alleviation and youth education, BosNewsLife monitored.
(With: BosNewsLife News Center, Stefan J. Bos, reports from Africa, North America)
