FITH RADIO and Facebook Pages

Unity and Charity Program - Australian Light Foundation

Review: ኢትዮጵያዊያን ሙስሊሞች (Ethiopian Muslims) – A Book by Ahmedin Jebel (አሕመዲን ጀበል)

May 10, 2013 | Libah Lencoo/ሊባህ ሌንጮ | The Gulele Post

The History of Islam in Ethiopia was extensively written by foreign scholars. The Arabs like Ibn Fadulullah Al-Umari and Muhammad Taqi’uddin Al-Maqrizi have taken the lead to record the lifes and states of Ethiopian Muslims as early as fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Modern European scholars like Enrico Cerulli, John Spencer Trimingham, Ewald Wagner, Alessandro Gori, Ulrich Braukemper and others have investigated the rich culture and history of Ethiopian Muslims and turned them into many scholarly books and journal articles. But Modern Ethiopian Muslim scholars themselves have exerted low effort in studying and writing their own history. Although some distinguished personalities like Prof. Hussein Ahmed and Prof Ahmad Zakaria of Addis Ababa University and Professor Muhammad Hassan of Georgia State University were doing their best throughout their scholarly careers, most of their works have been in inaccessible to ordinary readers in Ethiopia; the reason behind this is that the works of these scholars were usually published abroad which makes their availability in local markets very difficult.

The Annual Badr Leadership Conference

May 01, 2013 | Badr Ethiopia

Badr Ethiopia held its annual leadership conference in Arlington, Virginia on April 27-28, 2013. At the meeting, there were 23 officials of the organization representing 15 distinct communities across the United States and Canada. Intensive and elaborate discussions followed the annual reports on operational activities, project completions, financial status, diplomatic missions and policy conditions of the organization. Among the core points of discussion were the concerns of each Badr community and the current lamentable situation of Ethiopian Muslims in Ethiopia. As expected, the stalemate between Ethiopian Muslims and their government topped the agenda of the two-day conference. Most of the time was spent on finding solutions to this impasse. We hope to share some of these solutions in the weeks and months to come.

Brainstorming sessions also included the establishment of a more effective line of communication between Badr and its communities; the development of Badr’s expanded outreach programs by strengthening the Public Relations department, which will include a spokesperson; the recruitment of a professional Executive Director who will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the organization; the hiring of a professional consulting firm for advocacy mission, etc. Detailed preparation for the upcoming convention in Atlanta was also presented.

Some of the participants in the meeting stated that the physical meeting of officers “really opened our eyes” about the rigorous work of Badr and the untiring and unselfish workload of the leaders. The meeting was very successful in that it brought consensus among the leaders about the mission and policy of the organization in attempting to solve perennial problems facing the indigenous people of Ethiopia.

We are grateful to all those who flew thousands of miles to attend the meeting. We hope the message they will deliver to their constituents will be clear and forthright.

Badr Ethiopia,
Washington DC

The rise of Islamophobia in Ethiopia

April 25, 2013| By Francois Craig | http://www.opendemocracy.net

Many observers have documented the rise in Islamophobic sentiments in many western lands, especially since 9/11. While any collective castigation of a community is as stupid as it is immoral, sometimes it is not surprising. When innocent people get confronted successively with the shocking facts of sudden loss of life and property by through the actions of certain members of a group of people, the suspicion towards the whole group gets amplified.

There are of course agents playing the ‘Islamophobic’ card for political purposes, but they do so on the bases of an already charged psycho-social environment, which they also help escalate in turn. At least in a society already filled with prejudice towards Islam, such an untoward marriage between terrorist destruction and political exploitation are bound to render people even more defensive in their attitudes towards Muslims who are construed as the ‘dangerous others’.

US Department of State Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012 in Ethiopia

Apr 23, 2013

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY        

Ethiopia is a federal republic. On August 20, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi died. The ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) elected then deputy prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn to take Meles’s place as chairman of the party. The EPRDF subsequently nominated him for the post of prime minister. On September 21, parliament elected Hailemariam as prime minister. In national parliamentary elections in 2010, the EPRDF and affiliated parties won 545 of 547 seats to remain in power for a fourth consecutive five-year term. Although the relatively few international officials allowed to observe the elections concluded technical aspects of the vote were handled competently, some also noted that an environment conducive to free and fair elections was not in place prior to the election.