Petition: Stop The Ministry of Education of Ethiopia To Take Over Illegally The Greek Community School

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The Ministry of Education in Ethiopia has targeted the Greek Community properties which was built by Greek families who have lived and worked hard in Ethiopia for decades.

These days an organized effort by the Ministry of Education in Ethiopia has escalated, aiming to forcefully change the ownership status of the Greek Community school complex in Addis Ababa. This complex is one of the largest schools in the country. The school plots of the community have been purchased by the descendants of Greek residents of Addis Ababa, while the school buildings have been constructed through the donations of 4 prominent community benefactors. The news of the occupation came as a bombshell to the Greek community and several Greeks arrived in a state of unrest at the school, accompanied by the Greek Ambassador to Addis Ababa. According to eyewitnesses, the police asked them to leave, and when the ambassador insisted on knowing the basis for the seizure, they brandished weapons and threatened her. According to the same testimonies, the incident has been captured on video, which the Ethiopian authorities, despite their attempts, failed to confiscate.

For the first time, through court summons, the Ministry of Education of Ethiopian is urgently demanding that the Greek community donate the Greek schools to an entity controlled by the Ethiopian government, which means surrendering the majority of its privately owned assets, exerting pressure against any law and logic. They are attempting to seize only the Greek schools and not the educational institutions of other countries operating in Addis Ababa, which were given the opportunity to choose their mode of operation. The question everyone is asking is: Why did the Ethiopian Minister of Education not deal with all the other schools in the capital and, by not listening to close collaborators in the Ministry of Education who have embraced the views of the Greek community, personally handle the issue of Greek community schools? The answer is obvious. The Minister is politically interested in the Ethiopian state appropriating the Greek school buildings because the school grounds are of great value, as they are located in a very good area with significant construction activity. Since last February, the Greek community has requested that the school operate as an English-speaking international school, but not only has no permit been granted yet, but there has also been a police occupation. Despite the community’s great management of the school, the government has seen it otherwise. A court issued an injunction to stop the Ministry of Education from setting up a new board to take over the school, for further investigation , but without a success.

The school buildings of the Greek community being nationalized by the Ethiopian authorities, leads to the erasure of Greek presence in the country after approximately 200 years. With the school’s revenue, the community maintains the Greek church, the archbishop’s palace, and the cemetery, while also supporting 80 needy individuals on a monthly basis. These are half of the assets that the Greeks had created in Ethiopia since, in 1975, the communist regime had confiscated 50% of the Greek community’s property. Despite the change to a democratic regime in 1992, the confiscated assets were never returned to their owners. However, all the Greeks in Ethiopia emphasize the excellent relations that the two peoples always had, attributing the responsibility for the unrest to the Minister of Education.

The Greek community board in Ethiopia states:

The right to be heard has been denied, and the property of the community is being confiscated by the Ministry of Education of Ethiopia illegally and violent change of ownership status of the Greek community in Addis Ababa is taking place.

This illegal procedure against the human rights of the students and members of the Greek Community School should be stopped, and the community’s property should be safeguarded through lawful means.

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