One would have expected that winning an Olympic
medal will put smile in the face of any athlete but that is not the case with
the Ethiopian marathoner who won silver at the just concluded Rio Olympic.
At a time the likes of Usain Bolt, and the British
team are still partying and celebrating their exploits at the games Feyisa Lilesa is seen lamenting what may
befall him if he ever step his feet in his home country despite winning silver
in the marathon race of the Olympic.
As Feyisa
Lilesa of Ethiopia crossed the finish line in his silver-medal marathon run at
the Rio Olympics on Sunday, he raised his arms and crossed them in an X, a
gesture of protest against his country’s government that he said could get him
killed if he returned home.
He is uncertain where he will go next, and what
will become of his wife and two children in Ethiopia.
“If I go back to Ethiopia, maybe they will
kill me,” he said at a news conference after
the race, according to The Sydney
Morning Herald. “If
I am not killed, maybe they will put me in prison.”
An accomplished distance runner who has one of the 50 fastest
marathon times, he
defied an Olympic prohibition on political demonstrations to make his statement, raising
his arms again in protest at the race’s medal ceremony. He quickly attracted
supporters on social media.
Antigovernment protests in Ethiopia, an American
ally that has experienced stability and a
growing economy over the last decade, have been growing recently, with thousands of people
demanding political changes.
Human rights groups say the protests have been
met by brutal crackdowns by the government, including the shooting deaths of
unarmed protesters. A Human Rights Watch report in June estimated that more than
400 people had been killed in seven months, almost all
of them civilians.
Protesters in the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s
largest, say they feel marginalized. The Tigrayan ethnic group makes up about 6
percent of the population but dominates in politics, the military and commerce.
“The Ethiopian government is killing my people,
so I stand with all protests anywhere, as Oromo is my tribe,” Mr. Lilesa said, according to The Washington
Post. “My
relatives are in prison, and if they talk about democratic rights they are
killed.”
He told reporters he did not know where he would
go next, but mentioned Kenya and the United States as possibilities, according to a video from
LetsRun.com.
The government of Ethiopia is yet to respond to
the allegation of ethnic killings and human rights abuse.
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