News

Ethiopia: Somali Muslim police officer becomes Christian, is fired and forced to move to another area

February 8, 2019

Despite the fact that Christians, mostly of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church that separated from Holy Orthodoxy over the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451, make up over 60% of the population of Ethiopia, they are still subject to incidents of official harassment of this kind, and occasionally subjected to violence as well. The Order hopes that the government of Ethiopia will act swiftly to suppress all elements within the country that are persecuting Christians such as Adane. Please pray for peace and security for the Christians in this ancient Christian land.

“Ethiopia: Ethnic Somali Christian police man forced to relocate after talking about his faith,” World Watch Monitor, February 7, 2019:

An Ethiopian police officer was arrested, dismissed and forced to move to another part of the country after he told colleagues about his Christian faith

The 25-year-old man, who grew up in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region as a member of the nearly 100 percent Muslim Somali tribe, became a Christian two years ago.

World Watch Monitor is using the pseudonym Adane to identify the man, whose true name is being withheld for security purposes.

A local source told World Watch Monitor that one of Adane’s colleagues in the Liyou police force, a local paramilitary group, recently filed a complaint against him with the Somali State Human Rights Office. He had been heard talking about his newly found Christian faith while in uniform.

The deputy chairman of the Human Rights Office, and ethnic Somali himself, was greatly surprised to discover that there actually was a Christian within the tribe, the local source said.

The human rights deputy advised Adane to return to Islam. Adane refused, claiming a constitutional right to religious freedom. He was then arrested.

Following intervention by the Human Rights Office-chairman, Adane was released, only to find he had been dismissed from the police force.

The chairman advised Adane to relocate to another area because he had made too many enemies locally, the local source said….

Ethiopia is 28th on Open Doors International’s 2019 World Watch List of the 50 countries in which it is most difficult to live as a Christian.