{"id":32599,"date":"2017-02-16T02:27:52","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T02:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ethiopian-olympic-protest-runner-feyisa-lilesa\/"},"modified":"2017-02-16T02:27:49","modified_gmt":"2017-02-16T02:27:49","slug":"ethiopian-olympic-protest-runner-feyisa-lilesa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ethiopian-olympic-protest-runner-feyisa-lilesa\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopian Olympic protest runner Feyisa Lilesa reunited with family"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Ethiopian runner Feyisa Lilesa, famous for his protest at the Rio Olympics, has been reunited with his family for the first time since going into exile.}<\/p>\n

He crossed his wrists over his head as he took silver in the marathon in a gesture against the Ethiopian government’s treatment of Oromo people.<\/p>\n

Afterwards he refused to go home, saying his life might be in danger.<\/p>\n

Now in the US, it is the first time he has seen his wife and two young children for at least six months.<\/p>\n

He told the Associated Press news agency that the decision to leave his family behind had been a necessary risk.<\/p>\n

“Putting them potentially in harm’s way was a good lesson for a lot of people that you need to sacrifice in order for you to win some concessions and change your situation,” he said.<\/p>\n

“In that sense, it inspires people to fight for their rights and resist the government in Ethiopia.”<\/p>\n

In September the athlete left Brazil for the US, where he is staying on a special skills visa.<\/p>\n

His family arrived with visas as well, AP reports.<\/p>\n

Mr Feyisa became the first Ethiopian to finish in the top two of a men’s Olympics marathon since 2000, claiming silver behind Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge.<\/p>\n

After his political protest, Ethiopian officials denied he was in danger, saying he would be welcomed home from Rio as a hero.<\/p>\n

At the time, Mr Feyisa said he had relatives who were in prison and if they talked about democratic rights they would be killed.<\/p>\n

He is from Oromia, home to most of Ethiopia’s 35 million Oromo people, the country’s largest ethnic group.<\/p>\n

A wave of anti-government protests began in the region in November 2015 with people complaining about social and political marginalisation.<\/p>\n

During the protests and police crackdowns, they used the symbol of crossing their arms above their heads to mark their defiance.<\/p>\n

In October, a six-month state of emergency was imposed in Ethiopia to deal with the unprecedented anti-government unrest.<\/p>\n

\"Feyisa<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Ethiopian runner Feyisa Lilesa, famous for his protest at the Rio Olympics, has been reunited with his family for the first time since going into exile.} He crossed his wrists over his head as he took silver in the marathon in a gesture against the Ethiopian government’s treatment of Oromo people. Afterwards he refused to […]<\/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-32599","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\/32599","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=32599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32599"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32599"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}