Four Ethiopian teenagers given a one-month jail sentence for distributing Christian literature are reported to be in ‘good health’ following their release from prison in late 2016.
The girls were found guilty of ‘inciting religious violence’ and started their sentence on 25 November, despite three of them being minors. Gifti,14, Mihiret,14, Eden, 15, and Deborah, 18, served their time in a large prison in Gelemiso, alongside criminals. The girls were distributing a book in the eastern Ethiopian town of Babile, not far from Harar – a city recognised by UNESCO as the fourth holy city of Islam – when they were first arrested.
Local Muslims said the book was an insult to Islam and this led to an attack on the Protestant Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) in Babile and the arrest of the four.
The book, Let’s Speak the Truth in Love: Answers to Questions by Ahmed Deedat, was written in Ethiopia’s main Amharic language by a local author. It 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.
