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Ethiopia: a Christian policeman lost his job because of his conversion to Christianity

police-officer

A policeman was dismissed after his conversion to the Christian faith in Ethiopia, in the region of Somali. He subsequently had to move house to get another job.

Adane (a pseudonym) who is twenty-five, grew up in the  Somali region, in the Eastern part of Ethiopia. His entire family believes in Allah, and as a child, he was brought up as a Muslim. Later, he worked for the Liyu paramilitary group as a policeman.

He converted to Christianity two years ago and often spoke to his colleagues about his new found faith. Eventually, one of them complained about him to the  Human Rights Office in Somali.

The vice-president of the Human Rights Office tried to convince him to return to the Islamic religion. Adane refused and referred to his constitutional right to religious liberty.  As a consequence of his meeting, he was arrested and lost his job. When he was finally released, he found himself unemployed and obliged to move to another town to seek employment.

Ethiopia is not a Muslim country. Sixty-four million people – almost half of the Ethiopian population, are Christian. Even so, in some parts of the country, Christians from different walks of life are discriminated against and are becoming ever more the object of frequent violent attacks.

In the Eastern part of the country, in the region of  Somali, Christians are especially persecuted. Here, the majority of the population are Muslims, and their own families customarily maltreat those who proclaim to follow Jesus.

Furthermore, Christians usually fall victim of the constant fight between two ethnic groups: the Oromos and the Somalis. Up until the present time, more than three million inhabitants have had to leave the territory, among them hundreds of thousands of Christians.

In August of 2018, because of a sudden outburst of violence, ten Orthodox churches were damaged, and nine Evangelical churches were pillaged in the region of Somali. Two months prior to this, twenty Christians were killed in the area of Bale Goba, in Oromia.

Source: PortesOuvertes

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