VOA ADDIS ABABA - Unofficial committees
within Ethiopia's 30-million strong Muslim community are organizing
demonstrations to protest what they say is government interference in Islamic
affairs. Tensions are rising as the government tries to preempt what it sees as
the rise of a hardline strain of Islam.
Worshippers arriving for Friday
prayers at Addis Ababa's Awalia mosque found a notice posted at the entrance,
which read: "They managed to get in through the back door before. Let's
make sure it doesn't happen again."
The notice was signed by a mosque
committee opposed to what it says has been a quiet government takeover of
Ethiopia's Islamic Affairs Supreme Council. The committee is demanding
elections for new council members, to be held in the city's mosques. They
rejected a suggestion that the vote be held in neighborhood government halls
called kebeles.
Standing at the entrance to the
mosque, Ibrahim Hassan who teaches computer science at the Awalia Mission
School, says holding the election in kebele halls would open the door to
mischief.
"It should be inside the
mosques, not in the kebeles because if it carried out in the kebeles there will
be corruption, or some of the government authorities may participate. That is
not fair. It is related to religion. There must not be interference of
government in such tasks," he said.
Awalia mosque has been at the center
of protests against what many Muslims see as government efforts to ban the
teachings of the conservative Salafist sect of Islam. The Islamic Supreme
Council recently fired several teachers at the Awalia mission school and shut
down an Arabic language teaching center.
Teacher Ibrahim accuses the council
of trying to indoctrinate Ethiopian Muslims into the little known al-Abhash
sect that preaches non-violence, as opposed to the more militant Salafist brand
of Islam.
"They think that the committee
may be terrorists," he said. "They consider us terrorists, but it
represents all the Muslim communities. They said that [some] Salafists are
members of al-Qaida, but in Ethiopia all of the Muslims are not members of
al-Qaida, they are simply regular Muslims."
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi last
month signaled a crackdown on those he accused of “peddling ideologies of
intolerance." In a speech to parliament, he said a few Salafis had formed
clandestine al-Qaida cells in the southern part of the country.
Days later, our protesters were
killed and many others injured in the southern state, Oromia when they tried to
prevent police from arresting a Muslim cleric accused of promoting a radical
ideology.
Last week, five men, including one
Kenyan national, were arraigned in Addis Ababa's federal court on charges of
operating an al-Qaida cell out of a mosque in Oromia.
In another incident this month,
Ethiopian authorities expelled two Arab men said to have been visiting from an
unnamed Middle Eastern country. The two were detained after making what police
called “inflammatory statements” and distributing materials at Addis Ababa's
main Anwar mosque.
And last Friday, dozens of young men
were reported to have stood outside Anwar mosque with tape over their mouths in
a silent protest. Young men standing at the entrance to Awalia mosque at last
Friday's prayers said another big demonstration is planned for this week.
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