Yedesdes Yasin’s scientific contributions

For over a decade, the Horn of Africa - Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan (now including South Sudan) - has been considered as a major source of Instability. In this volatile region where insecurity is frequent, Ethiopia is a unique country with relative peace and stability. Religious freedom, including the right of religious communities to “establish institutions of religious education and administration in order to propagate and organize their religion,” has been one of the fundamental provisions of Ethiopia’s current constitution. The constitution recognized Ethiopia’s long standing religious diversity and promised to end religious discrimination by providing the assurance of no government interference in religious matters and vice versa. Yet, a closer look at the past 20 years reveals that EPRDF’s relations with Ethiopia’s religious communities were clearly unconstitutional. The current Muslim community protests at various scales against government interference in religious affairs, calls for a nuanced understanding of the context. This paper seeks to do that by focusing on the unique, countrywide, protest of the Muslim community, which started in July 2011, as an example. Furthermore, the paper assesses how the repression on religious freedom impacts the instability of Horn of Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular.

For over a decade, the Horn of Africa - Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan (now including South Sudan) - has been considered as a major source of Instability. In this volatile region where insecurity is frequent, Ethiopia is a unique country with relative peace and stability. Religious freedom, including the right of religious communities to “establish institutions of religious education and administration in order to propagate and organize their religion,” has been one of the fundamental provisions of Ethiopia’s current constitution. The constitution recognized Ethiopia’s long standing religious diversity and promised to end religious discrimination by providing the assurance of no government interference in religious matters and vice versa. Yet, a closer look at the past 20 years reveals that EPRDF’s relations with Ethiopia’s religious communities were clearly unconstitutional. The current Muslim community protests at various scales against government interference in religious affairs, calls for a nuanced understanding of the context. This paper seeks to do that by focusing on the unique, countrywide, protest of the Muslim community, which started in July 2011, as an example. Furthermore, the paper assesses how the repression on religious freedom impacts the instability of Horn of Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular.