Ethiopian medalist makes protest gesture at marathon finish

Ethiopian medalist makes protest gesture at marathon finish

Ethiopia’s Feyisa Lilesa held his arms over his head, wrists crossed, as he finished second at the Olympic marathon on Sunday in a gesture of support for members of his Oromo tribe who have been protesting at government plans to reallocate farmland.

Plans to allocate land surrounding the capital for development prompted fierce demonstrations in November and spread for months, in the country’s worst unrest in more than a decade. Ethiopia has long been one of the world’s poorest nations but has industrialized rapidly in the past decade. However, reallocating land is a thorny issue for Ethiopians, many of whom are subsistence farmers. Authorities scrapped the scheme in January, but protests flared