Press Release: Bilal Ethiopian Muslim Community Statement on Current Alarming Situations in Ethiopia
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Bilal Ethiopian Muslim Community Statement on Current Alarming Situations in Ethiopia
First and foremost, we, The Bilal Ethiopian Muslim Community in Dallas, Texas, thank the Almighty Allah for making it possible for our Muslims brothers, who were unjustly imprisoned for raising legitimate questions about their religious rights enshrined by the nation’s constitution, to be freed at last from years of imprisonment. We, as always, put our trust in the Almighty Allah that the remaining committee members and other Ethiopians will also be freed soon from prison and return to their families. We also call on the government of Ethiopia to release all the remaining Muslims wrongly incarcerated and all Ethiopians imprisoned for making peaceful demonstrations and demanding their constitutional rights to be respected and their concerns be addressed.
We believe the current gloomy situation in Ethiopia is the government’s own making due to repeated unwise choices in handling the legitimate questions concerning their constitutional rights both by the Muslims’ populace through the Arbitration Committee and the recent peaceful demonstrations in Oromia and Amhara regions, just to mention a few recent ones. We call upon the government of Ethiopia not only to restrain from using raw military and deadly forces on its own peacefully demonstrating citizens, but the government should realize its obligations to be proactive and help the demonstrators to remain peaceful and protect the demonstrators from any harm. So far, the government of Ethiopia not only failed to provide protection to the peaceful demonstrators, but by its own repeated admissions, the actions of its forces have been the causes of deaths of several peaceful demonstrators.
Given the current situations in Ethiopia and what we have witnessed from the measures taken by the government, Ethiopia is alarmingly sliding to an undemocratic repressive political situation. Bilal Ethiopian Muslim Community at Dallas, Texas reiterate its call for the release of all prisoners incarcerated for demanding their constitutional rights and peacefully demonstrating for their voices to be heard! We strongly demand the government of Ethiopia to stop the killings of innocent peaceful demonstrators and call on the international community to put pressure on the Ethiopian government to investigate the killings by a neutral body to bring those responsible to justice.
Peace and justice for the People of Ethiopia!
Bilal Ethiopian Muslim Community
Dallas, Texas
September 25, 2016
