Three teenage Christian girls appeared in court on 15 November in Babile, some 550km east of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, charged by the authorities with inciting religious violence.
The girls, whose names were given as Eden, 15, Gifti, 14 and Mihiret, 14 – together with an older girl, named Deborah – were arrested in the mainly Muslim region, following the distribution of a Christian book apparently seeking to counter widely-circulated polemics against Christianity by a well-known Islamic critic.
In a brief hearing, the judge sentenced all four to one month in prison, after asking the prosecutor to present evidence. The girls will be transferred to a larger prison in a town called Gelemiso to serve the sentence among common criminals, even though three of them are below the age of 18. The judge allowed for an appeal, but it can only take place after their transfer.
Shocked families
The girls’ families are said to be shocked by the verdict, but have not decided yet if they will appeal.
The case follows the distribution of a Christian book (in Ethiopia’s main Amharic language) by a local author, Let’s Speak the Truth in Love: Answers to Questions by Ahmed Deedat, that sets out to answer questions posed by the late South African Islamic scholar (and former head of the Islamic Propagation Centre International) about the Christian faith. Local Christians decided to distribute it following cross-cultural evangelism training.
Honoured to suffer
Eden suffered a beating on her first night in prison. ‘This [suffering] is an honour for us. We should expect persecution. We are not afraid. We are singing and praying here in prison’, Eden said. Deborah added: ‘It is an honour to be jailed for God’s Kingdom’.
