Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
The Constitution of Ethiopia of 1995 enshrines, in Article 11 (1 and 2), the principle of separation between state and religion. Article 11 (3) further adds that no religion shall be considered official and that the state shall not interfere in religious matters, nor will any religious denomination interfere in state affairs. Article 27 (1) acknowledges the freedom of conscience and religion of all Ethiopian citizens, including the freedom, “either individually or in community with others, in public or in private, to manifest one’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, and teaching.” Article 27 (2 and 3) also asserts the right of individuals to disseminate their beliefs and to convert to another faith, as well as the right of parents to educate their children in the religion they practise.
The preamble to the constitution states that the “even development of the various cultures and religions” is one of the necessary foundations to “ensure a lasting peace, an irreversible and thriving democracy and an accelerated economic and social development for our country, Ethiopia.”
The constitution prohibits religious teaching in all schools, both public and private. Article 90 (2) states: “Education shall be conducted in a manner which is, in all respects, free from religion, [as well as] political or cultural influences.” Religious instruction is permitted in churches and mosques.
The law prohibits the formation of political parties based on religion.
Under a law introduced in February 2009 called the Charities and Societies Proclamation, all Churches and religious groups are considered charity organisations and as such are required to be recognised as a juridical body, submitting a request for registration within the Ministry of Justice. They must renew this application every three years. Without such registration, they cannot engage in activities such as opening a bank account or obtaining legal representation. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) and the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (EIASC) are exempt from this three-yearly renewal process. Churches and other agencies specialising in charitable and development work are required to register with the Charities and Societies Agency, separately from the religious body to which they belong, and are thus subject to existing legislation on NGOs. There is a limit of 10 percent on funding received from abroad.
Applications to register as a religious group fall under the Directorate of Faith and Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Peace. Registering grants religious organisations legal status, which gives their members the right to congregate, obtain land to build places of worship, and build cemeteries. Religious groups must file annual reports and issue financial statements.
Ethiopia is ethnically very diverse and defines itself as a country of distinct “Nations, Nationalities and Peoples” (Article 8,1) with more than 80 spoken languages. Speakers of Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya, and Somali constitute about two thirds of the population. Article 5 of the 1995 constitution grants equal status to all Ethiopian languages and entitles each of the country’s eleven regional states (Article 47,1) to choose its own working language; however, Amharic is the only working language of Ethiopia’s federal government. This proved to be a bone of contention among the country’s largest ethnic groups with implications for religion as well. In 2020, the central government added Afan Oromo, Afar, Somali, and Tigrinya as official languages.
In addition to language, Ethiopia is characterised by great religious diversity in a society that is deeply religious. About 60 percent of the population of more than 110 million is Christian and 35 percent is Muslim. The remaining five percent is made up of ethno-religions and other groups. Orthodox Christians make up about 44 percent, particularly in the Tigray and Amhara states and some parts of Oromia while Sunni Muslims are dominant in Oromia and the Somali and Afar regions. Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians are around 19 percent and are most strongly concentrated in the south-west. Catholics represent about 0.7 percent of the population.
Ethnic Amhara, Tigrayans and speakers of other Semitic languages who are largely Orthodox Christians, live in the northern highlands. Historically, they have dominated the country’s political life. Most Muslims, Protestants and followers of indigenous beliefs tend to live in lowland areas in the country’s south and east.
A 2008 law made it a criminal offence to incite hostility between religions by means of the media, as well as to engage in blasphemy and the defamation of religious leaders. Various government and civil society initiatives have sought to promote harmonious coexistence between religions and to prevent and solve conflicts related to religion. The government has created the National Interfaith Peace Council, which works with state governments to foster religious coexistence.
The government does not grant permanent visas to foreign religious workers unless they are involved in development projects managed by registered NGOs affiliated with their respective Churches. This policy is not normally applied in the case of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Since the Catholic Church is considered a charity, foreign religious staff is not allowed to retire in Ethiopia but can continue to work beyond the age of 65.
Some Christian and Muslim holy days are statutory holidays. Official holidays include Christmas, Epiphany, Good Friday, Easter, Meskel, Eid al-Adha, Mawlid (birth of the Prophet Muhammad), and Eid al-Fitr. Muslim public servants can take a two-hour break for Friday prayer, but this does not apply to employees in the private sector.
Shari‘a courts have jurisdiction in personal status cases when both parties are Muslim and agree to submit to it.
Incidents and developments
Abiy Ahmed, an ethnic Oromo and Evangelical Christian, has been Ethiopia’s prime minister since April 2018. His efforts at resolving the border conflict with Eritrea earned him the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. Under his rule, political prisoners were released and exiled political leaders and religious scholars were invited to come home. Television channels and media outlets that had been shut down reopened, and religious tolerance and radicalisation became topics of debate. He also encouraged Christian and Muslim religious leaders to engage in interfaith relations and work towards peace.
However, within a few years, instead of pursuing further democratic reform Abiy began backsliding and resorting to traditional strongman policies. Efforts towards religious reconciliation also collapsed as the government began advocating a return to an ancient form of Christian imperialism based on the notion that Ethiopia is a Christian nation. In so doing he jeopardised the country’s unity fuelling inter-ethnic and political tensions.
Violence erupted in November 2020 with fighting breaking out in Tigray, a northern state on the border with Eritrea, when the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) was attacked. The ensuing conflict pitted the ENDF, supported by the Eritrean army and several ethnic militias, against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the Tigray Defence Forces and allied ethnic militias such as the Oromo Liberation Army.
The TPLF, an ethnically based political party, played a dominant role in the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of ethnic parties that ruled the country for almost three decades after the end of the country’s civil war (1974-1991). Upon their ouster from power in the 2018 Ethiopian election, TPLF leaders moved back to their regional stronghold causing tensions between regional and federal governments which eventually turned into open war.
Throughout the hostilities, Ethiopian and their Eritrean allies reportedly not only slaughtered civilians during their operations in the rebel region but also appear to have engaged in looting and wanton destruction of its religious heritage, both Christian and Muslim. The intended goal, according to some observers, appears to have been a cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Although the violence was primarily perpetrated along ethnic (regional and linguistic) lines, the conflict also had important religious connotations and affected members of religious groups in both the Tigray as well as elsewhere in the country.
Amid the chaos caused by the war, Christians were caught in the crossfire. One example is the arrest on 5 November 2021 of 17 members of a Salesian-run educational facility in Gottera (Addis Ababa). Those detained included priests, religious brothers, and employees, taken, for no apparent reason, to an unknown place by government forces.
On 30 November 2021, six Tigrayan sisters of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul and one Ursuline sister, all ethnic Tigrayan, were arrested as were two nuns from Kobo (Amhara state) and two deacons. Because of their ethnicity, the women religious were likely caught up in the government’s anti-Tigrayan crackdown against anyone suspected of aiding and supporting the TPLF. All were eventually released on 15 January 2022 except for the two deacons and the two non-Tigrayan nuns. The government did not provide any reason for the arrests and no further information was offered to their religious communities.
Tensions also rose between Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and Muslims following an attack by armed men against the funeral of a Muslim elder on 26 April 2022 in the city of Gondar, in Amhara state, which left four dead and many injured. The Islamic Affairs Council of Amhara described the event as a “massacre” by heavily armed “extremist Christians”. As the violence spread, rioters attacked and set fire to Muslim-owned businesses and homes as well as mosques. Another 17 people were reported killed.
These escalated into retaliatory actions against Christians in Silte in south-central Ethiopia where several churches were torched. Individuals believed to be Islamic radicals reportedly broke into and vandalised the St Rufael (Raphael) Church in Werabe (or Worabe) before setting it on fire. They also burnt the St Gabriel Church and two other churches. The Orthodox Diocese of Silete (Silte) sent a letter to the Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarchate requesting government protection for the remaining churches and their members. Local Protestant places of worship were also attacked. Police arrested more than 370 people for looting and destroying religious places and other properties.
On 14 June 2022, at least 40 people were killed in clashes between armed groups in Gambella, a city in western Ethiopia, which elicited a response from the country’s bishops who urged the perpetrators to end their evil deeds and respect the lives of others. “Our Church is deeply concerned about the dangerous situation in which the population finds itself,” the prelates said in a statement. “Nobody should be killed because of identity and religion.”
On 18 June 2022, some 400 ethnic Amhara civilians were killed in Tole Kebele (Gimbi), 400 kilometres west of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. The attack was blamed on the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), allied with the TPLF, but regular Ethiopian forces were accused of doing little to protect the local population. Following the massacre, university students organised a protest against the killings.
On 29 July 2022, Ethiopian soldiers killed more than 150 members of Al-Shabaab, a Somali-based extremist organisation linked to al-Qaeda, during a clash near the Somalia border. An Al-Shabaab leader died in the assault.
As a result of the war, massacres, food shortages and famine, between 600,000 to 800,000 have died since November 2020, and more than 2.6 million were displaced in Tigray but also in Amhara and Afar states.
Faltering efforts for peace were ultimately successful. In March 2022, the warring parties accepted a five-month truce, however, this was not renewed. After government forces made major gains against the TPLF, the parties again convened and worked out a deal in South Africa. On 2 November 2022, the Ethiopian government and the TPLF reached a tentative peace agreement brokered by the African Union.
Following the cease-fire, the country’s Catholic bishops issued a message issued at the end of their annual ordinary assembly, welcoming the “permanent cessation of hostilities”.
Prospects for freedom of religion
Peace in Ethiopia is still fragile and the underlying reasons for the conflict in the Tigray and other states and regions have not gone away. The scale of the atrocities committed by all sides is such that reconciliation will take time and concerted effort.
The challenges of ethno-nationalism and the conflictual relationship between central and state governments over power and language underlie the country’s main cleavages. According to some observers, certain Ethiopian nationalists, many of them Orthodox, share a desire to restore their once-dominant position stemming from a mythical view of the country’s imperial past. If indeed the case and this spreads, it could cause further challenges for Ethiopia.
Apart from the war, during the period under review both Christians and Muslims have suffered from religiously motivated violence; the causes here, however, have largely been local in character often related to disputes over the construction of religious buildings, especially mosques and Protestant temples, the desecration of religious books and artefacts, and conflicts over religious rituals.
Another destabilising factor is the potential threat represented by Al-Shabaab. The militant Salafi jihadist group based in neighbouring Somalia could conceivably take advantage of Ethiopia’s internal troubles to pursue operations in Ethiopia’s Somali Region, with whom it shares language and the Islamic religion.
Yet there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel. In response to the risks posed by ethno-religious extremism, greater openness and cooperation is being encouraged at all levels, even within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The peace deal between Tigray and the central government also points in that direction. If the ambitions prove permanent, prospects for religious freedom should improve.
Ethiopia