{"id":27973,"date":"2016-08-23T02:03:16","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T02:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ethiopia-hero-runner-gets-asylum-donations-after\/"},"modified":"2016-08-23T02:03:05","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T02:03:05","slug":"ethiopia-hero-runner-gets-asylum-donations-after","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ethiopia-hero-runner-gets-asylum-donations-after\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia ‘hero’ runner gets asylum donations after Oromo protest sign"},"content":{"rendered":"

{A crowd-funding campaign has raised more than $40,000 (\u00a330,000) to help Ethiopia’s Olympic marathon silver medallist Feyisa Lilesa seek asylum.}<\/p>\n

He crossed his hands above his head as he finished the race – a gesture made by Ethiopia’s Oromo people who have suffered brutal police crackdowns.<\/p>\n

He says he may be killed if he goes home but Ethiopia’s government says he will be welcomed as a hero.<\/p>\n

However, state media is not showing photos of him crossing the line.<\/p>\n

There has been a wave of protests in Ethiopia in recent months over a series of frustrations, including attempts by the governments to reallocate land in the Oromo and Amhara regions.<\/p>\n

US-based Human Rights Watch says security forces have killed more than 400 Oromo protesters, a figure the government disputes.<\/p>\n

Rule 50 of the Olympic charter bans political displays or protests and the IOC say they are gathering information about the case.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Emmanuel Igunza in neighbouring Kenya says Mr Feyisa is being described by some as the bravest Olympian at the Rio Games for his anti-government protest, but he now faces the prospect of a life in exile.<\/p>\n

Within hours of his protest, a crowd-funding page was set up, saying the runner had displayed “extraordinary heroism” and that he had become an “international symbol” for the Oromo protests.<\/p>\n

The California-based organiser had initially set a target of $10,000 but it was exceeded within an hour.<\/p>\n

“We raised the bar to $25,000 and that too was exceeded in a few hours,” Solomon Ungashe wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n

After the race, Mr Feyisa explained why, as an Oromo, he supported the protests about land and resources.<\/p>\n

“The Ethiopian government is killing my people so I stand with all protests anywhere as Oromo is my tribe. My relatives are in prison and if they talk about democratic rights they are killed,” he said.<\/p>\n

A legal team hired by Ethiopians in US is headed to Rio to try and help Mr Feyisa, who has a wife and two children in Ethiopia, with a request to seek asylum in the US.
\nBut Information Minister Getachew Reda told the BBC the government had no reason to arrest him and it respected his political opinion.<\/p>\n

He also said none of Mr Feyisa’s relatives had been jailed over the Oromo protests.<\/p>\n

Ethiopian state-owned television station EBC Channel 3 covered the race live, including the finish, but did not repeat the clip in subsequent bulletins – focussing instead on the winner Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{A crowd-funding campaign has raised more than $40,000 (\u00a330,000) to help Ethiopia’s Olympic marathon silver medallist Feyisa Lilesa seek asylum.} He crossed his hands above his head as he finished the race – a gesture made by Ethiopia’s Oromo people who have suffered brutal police crackdowns. He says he may be killed if he goes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27973"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27973"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}