Ethiopia says protesting marathoner to be welcomed as hero

Most of those who watched Lilesa’s spectacular silver medal performance didn’t know what that meant – or just how unsafe a protest they were watching.

Afterwards he said he was protesting to support family members who were illegally jailed in Ethiopia for protesting the government there.

In response to the protests and the report from Human Rights Watch, Getachew Reda, Ethiopia’s Minister of Communications, told CNN that the country’s security response was standard police protocol to disperse “rioters”.

He repeated the gesture during the race’s medal ceremony, saying he was afraid to go back to his homeland following his protest “against the government’s attitude regarding Oromo people”, one of two main ethnic groups in Ethiopia.

“I have relatives in prison back home”, he said.

Moment of protest: Ethiopia’s Feyisa Lilesa crosses his arms as he crosses the finish line.

He said that in the last nine months more than a thousand people had been killed by the government for protesting for rights and democracy. [If ] they [do] not put me in prison they will block me at airport. “I have not decided yet, but maybe I will move to another country”. The plan has been abandoned, but demonstrations calling for wider freedoms have continued.

Ethiopia has always been one of the world’s poorest nations but has industrialised rapidly in the past decade. He told reporters that Ethiopia’s government is killing his people and taking their resources.

Authorities scrapped the scheme in January, but protests flared again this month over the continued detention of opposition demonstrators.

The Ethiopian government has since said that the athlete is welcome home.

“Oromo is my tribe”, he said.

Oromo people now protest what is right, for peace, for a place, ‘ Lilesa explained after his silver-medal performance, adding that he feared he would face consequences for the gesture when he returned home. You can not work without that’.