Eritrean journalist Semret Seyoum’s Personal Testimony

13 December

Semret Seyoum’sPersonal Testimony

at the East and Horn of Africa Journalists’ conference

held atEntebbe, Uganda

from 27/11/06 to 29/11/06

Dear fellow journalists and invited guests,


I would like to thank the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project and organisations that helped in funding this conference for providing me the opportunity to share a personal testimony with you.


Eritrea has a long history. This is probably not the time to go there. It is more convenient to focus on what happened in September 2001 – 10 days after September 11 or better known as 9/11 – and thereafter.


From my point of view and in relation to private press in Eritrea, the following is what happened in September 2001.


The closing down of 8 independent newspapers and the imprisonment of at least 16 journalists was the final act that strangled the hopeful aspirations for a better Eritrea. It marked the day Eritrean voices were silenced. September 2001 is perceived as the Black September in Eritrea now.


My own personal experience in this tragedy began when I joined the Eritrean liberation struggle in 1978. I was under-age then. After 13 years of service, I was one among those who happened to see the political independence of my country.


To this day, I have yet to see the freedom I was led to believe I would have – in a free and sovereign Eritrea.The first few years of post-independence period looked very promising and I looked forward to my higher education dream at the University of Asmara.After I completed my first year, the Government of Eritrea ordered all ex-fighters who were studying at the University to give up their studies and go back to their respective ministries or units.


There was no explanation.


I felt betrayed by the very leadership we trusted and helped to put in power. To be denied education by a liberation movement that prided itself for championing and providing education to its members and the public was beyond my comprehension.


That was a time in my life when I was attracted by the idea and ambition of setting up a private and independent newspaper. Those who were at the receiving end were unable to discuss or put up any tangible opposition. Had there been private papers at the time, government officials would not have dared take such a discriminatory and unjustifiable action. I still believe it is the case.


In 1996, we were given the permission to be demobilised.


After 4 wasted years, I resumed my university education in 1996.


That was the year we, two friends and myself, managed to set up the first private newspaper in independent Eritrea in accordance to Eritrean Press Law of 10th June 1996.


We called the paper ‘Setit’.


It was put on the market for the first time on the 21st of August 1997.


It was not always a smooth ride.


In the four years, till its final closure in 2001, there were many hostile blocks that tested its resolve. Seven other journalists and myself were arrested and detained for one week in October of 2000 without charge.At the time of our imprisonment, a group of educated Eritreans who later came to be known as group 13 or G-13 sent a document to the President of Eritrea. It was posted on the net. It expressed their disquiet and the concerns they had on what was going on in Eritrea.The rounding up of independent journalists was basically to prevent us from making the content of their letter accessible to the public. There was no doubt about it. Government authorities were trying to send a message of terror and warning. They were worried about the popularity of the private newspapers. Had it not been for the world community and international media campaign, the life of the private papers would have ended in October of 2000.The turbulence, dissatisfaction and disenchantment that began to rumble in October 2000 reached a boiling point in May of 2001. For the first time, high-ranking government officials and ministers, later to be known as Group 15 or G-15, were prepared to air their views and question the President of Eritrea.
As a private media, we felt it was our duty to present the public their side of the story.
In the days and weeks that followed, we interviewed some of the group members and we urged the government and the opponents to show the same commitment and responsibility to resolve their differences on a round table.
This continued for almost four months. Finally, the darkest day in the history of the young nation arrived. It was the day when its democratic and constitutional future was diverted from its natural course.
Our paper was already published on the Tuesday of the 18th of September 2001 when the group 15 members were arrested and all the private papers were closed.
A week later government security forces arrested most of the journalists of the private papers. Aaron who is hear today with us and myself went in hiding. After three months, on 6th of January 2002, we set a foot on a long journey of exile.
Our destination was to go to Sudan.We were not that far from crossing the border when we suddenly realised that we were in the vicinity of an Eritrean patrol unit. They started to shoot in our direction without waiting for our reply.
The distance between the trigger-happy guards and ourselves was so tight that we only had split seconds to react. We run in opposite directions and they chose to go for me. There were four guards and they shouted at me to stop. There was nothing I could do. I had nowhere to run or hide. I just gave myself up.


They asked me whether I had a weapon of any kind. I said “No!” They grabbed me and ordered me to take off my shoes. They then frisked me and took all the money and other things I had. They started their mindless beating. On that day, it all rained on me with kicks, punches, head-butting and all the rest. Barefoot and hands tied behind my back, they took me to a place called Girmayka on foot. There, they tied my feet and hands together until they touched my back and was thrown on bare ground under night stars with no protection from desert cold. I spent the night in extreme chill. At dawn, I was taken to an underground dungeon and was locked up with my hands still tied behind with a guard outside. Late in the evening, they took me to a notorious underground prison called Haddish Me’asker. Once there, the piece of rope that tied my hands was replaced by a proper shackle. Thereafter, the verbal abuse and incessant threats on my life became an endless daily intake.


I went through dreadful interrogations for a long time. They wanted to know how we started out as a private paper. Who was behind the initiative?Who we met when we started?All questions were punctuated by threats to my life. They were intended to imply that there was a foreign hand behind all private papers and that all the journalists were collaborators. I was locked in solitary confinement in a cell the size of a single bed for months. The room was always dark.My hand shackled behind my back and always bare-foot. When I am let out of my cell to use the toilet or to have something to eat, I was not allowed to get close to other prisoners. But those were the only moments my hands were unshackled and I see he light of the day. The food was watery lentil with a piece of bread. Given the prevalence of many contagious diseases like diarrhoea among the prisoners, the medical facility was negligible.


In Eritrea, prisoners do not have access to legal representation.They are not brought to a court of law.I didn’t expect that my case would be handled any different. No prisoner was allowed to write or receive a letter or send one to friends or loved ones. Paper and pen were strictly prohibited and there would be dire consequences for any prisoner if found with any.


No reading and no visits either. One is left with ones thoughts in the dark.


After 8 months in ‘Haddish-Me’asker’ prison, I was taken with one hundred others on a truck and transferred to another underground prison located on the western outskirts of the capital Asmara. It’s still known as Track – B.


The prison was a temporary stop from one prison to another.


They kept me there for 4 months and on the 9th January 2003, I was ordered to collect my belongings and was taken to `Discipline Control Office’. There, I was told that my punishment is over and was sent home.


Soon after my release, I was forcibly conscripted in the Eritrean Defence Force with no salary and no specific task to perform. I repeatedly requested the responsible government departments for my salary and be transferred to the Ministry of Justice – a work place compatible to my qualification.


I was a Law graduate from the University of Asmara.


It didn’t work. It was unrealistic. I knew I was still closely watched and followed by security officers.


I tried my best not to give them an excuse. I limited my movements and interactions with others, but I never stopped thinking of leaving the country for the second time round whatever the consequences.


I was just bidding my time until an opportunity presented itself.At the end of September 2004, I crossed the border and entered Sudan. Although it was not safe for me to stay in Sudan for a long time, I was able to breathe fresh air of freedom. From then on I was never alone.


Within a year and before I left for Sweden at the end of 2005 through the UNHCR resettlement program, I received a lot of support from Elsa Chyrum the Eritrean Human Rights Activist, Amnesty International, English PEN and lots of other friends.


Ever since I left prison and after months of solitary confinement, I suffer from traumatic nightmares. Images of torture and abuse at Haddish Me’asker are still vivid.


I sometimes feel like I am still in that god-forsaken prison. When I wake up, I realise I am no longer there and breath air of relief and gratitude.Having gone through all these, it is not difficult to imagine what the 16 imprisoned journalists in Eritrea are going through.


I admire fellow journalists in the Horn and East Africa and around the world. Your determination and bravery to raise public awareness in the face of repression despite the risks involved in carrying out your duties say more than you can imagine.


Thank you


Semret Seyoum


Entebee, Uganda


28 November 2006

Eritrean journalist Ahmed Omer Sheikh released

The famous Arabic language journalist and poet Ahmed Omer Sheikh is released from jail on Saturday Dec 9 2006 after being kept in prison for a week.

Ahmed was released with out being told why he was arrested and he is the second journalist to be released after Simon Zewdie, who was released two weeks ago.

To read the news in arabic please refer http://www.adoulis.com/details.php?rsnType=1&id=974

Eritrean government: running out of propaganda tricks

By Gemeda Humnasa
December 11, 2006

The Eritrean government has been using a lot of propaganda and supporting various rebels in an attempt to destabilize East Africa. For the sake of peace and democracy for Ethiopians, Somalis, Sudanese and Eritreans; the government might be running out of its tricks.
We know how corrupt both the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments were when they got their share of the cake in the early 1990’s. Words around Ethiopia indicated that the leaders of these two countries, Isaias Afewerki and Meles Zenawi, were even in the gambling business and wasting a lot of their government’s money. This might be just a gossip but their dispute with money has been seen as the original reason of their animosity, instead of the border issue with Badme. No matter what happened before, we must focus on what is the reality today.
Currently, in an attempt to increase nationalism mood in Eritrea and to provoke Ethiopia one more time; the Eritrean government is sparking another war in southern Somalia. It is yet another war started by the young government of Eritrea which was ironically originally supported by the Ethiopian government. Anyway no one can deny that the Somalia Transitional government is weak but that is more the fault of the United Nation’s lack of support to the T.F.G. to get on its foot two years ago. When Kofi Annan gave his last address on Monday, Africans were hoping that he would accept his failure to assist the Somalia transitional government. The reality is the Union of Islamic Courts is threatening to take around 1/5th of Ethiopian land and around 1/4th of Kenyan land. And no one is putting this information in anyone’s mouth. This was publicly stated by the UIC and the jihadists many times. Eritrea claiming to help the radical Islamists to stabilize Somalia is a humorous claim that doesn’t appear funny to those serious about creating peace and democracy in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
Everybody knows Eritrea doesn’t have any independent or private media. But the world is not stressing this issue just for the sake of calling it “private.” We are stressing it because when a country has a private media, its dirt and mistakes would become public just like the dirt and mistakes of the Ethiopian government and then improvements can be made. Even more, when private media exists, most likely multi-party system will also exist and the chances of a one-party government supporting jihadists and Al-Qaeda members gets lower. Now we are not talking about chance anymore because the Eritrean government has already started supporting the terrorists and the secessionists. If an inside opposition party challenged the Eritrean government, this would have never happened. If we had all these things in Eritrea, we would have known how bad & often religious citizens are being persecuted. We would have known if there are hundreds more or thousands more that are being tortured and killed. Most of the time, we don’t know how bad things get until the persecuted leave the country secretly, some how, and reach the Ethiopian, Sudanese and other borders. The country is so closed that the whole country appears like a prison. As the result, the lone media that comes out of the nation is not about how different economic and other policies should be done in the country. It is usually propaganda news about countries that the government hates. Which are of course Ethiopia and Western nations. So it is common to hear about Eritrean news agencies talking dirt about Ethiopia, Israel, America and Great Briton. These Eritrean news sources might as well change their names to the regions they cover instead of calling themselves “Eritrean.” People might have to wait a whole year before they can hear about any Eritrean reporter discussing how to challenge the policies of the Eritrean government. For example you will never see an opposition party itself, let alone the opposition party like Ethiopia’s CUDP members shouting and criticizing the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. Most Ethiopians wonder when will they see such democratic change in Eritrea, not because they hate Eritreans, but only because they know that in order to live peacefully as neighbors we can not have a dictatorship unchallenged and the atrocities it commits concealed from the whole wide world. If this keeps going we will see the Eritrean government bombing more Ethiopian schools and financing more terrorist groups for many more decades. Ethiopia itself is not completely open, but it is a galaxy away compared to Eritrea. It is safe to say that those of us living in America will continue to see press conferences, parliament meetings, opposition member discussions and almost everything that is going on in Ethiopia.

If we want peace in East Africa, Eritrea will have to start to open up a little and stop attacking Ethiopians. When the Eritrean government laughably told the United Nations not to send foreign peacekeepers inside Somalia, the world was wondering what to call the thousands of Eritreans already training with the jihadists. Eritrean jihadists? Eritrean-jihadist-Somalis? Such hypocrisy by the Eritrean government would have never been tolerated by the Eritrean people if they were free. Last week, when we saw hundreds of Eritreans protesting in London against the Eritrean government, we did not see their political representation. We did not see their propaganda or political affiliation. What we saw was pure thirst for freedom in Eritrea.
Now the mess the Eritrean government has created in Somalia has to be cleaned out by the blood of thousands of people. Hopefully, when the war is over, Somalia would have a leadership that will be friendly with its neighbors. But not just Somalia, the secessionist rebels like OLF would have never been in such a position if they were not supported by the Eritrean government. OLF was dying. Kenya was also kicking it out. And Ethiopian Oromos were ignoring it and telling it to reform. What OLF did not understand was that the spirit of OLF for justice, freedom and equality will never die. The progressive spirit of Oromo Liberation Front will and should never die. No matter how small in number the fighters of OLF are, the membership of the progressive OLF will always be more than 25 million Ethiopians. But the membership of the backward OLF is getting smaller and smaller everyday. What OLF failed to see was that the struggle has been reformed. It has changed from armed to a peaceful struggle. The leadership of OLF failed to see that Oromos are developing and improving Oromia while peacefully dealing with discrimination. At this time, Oromos are not being persecuted for being Oromos. They are being persecuted for following the destructive & backward policies of OLF which are in fact backward enough to destabilize the whole of Ethiopia. At this time, Ethiopians do not see the current, unreformed OLF as standing for a better Ethiopia anymore. OLF now looks more like an Oromia supremacy organization. It was up to OLF to catch up with the reformation. But so far it has failed. Most importantly, compromising outlooks and reformations are usually fueled by desperation. When OLF started to lose members, its growing desperation was about to end the misery of all Ethiopians and we were going in the right direction. But all of the sudden, the Eritrean government came to the picture and by giving military aid to OLF rebels; it came to “the rescue” of the dying, backward OLF while blocking the progressive OLF.
If we want peace in East Africa, proxy wars & battles have to stop. The Ethiopian government must stop arming the Eritrean Islamists and the Eritrean government must stop arming Oromo Liberation Front, Ogaden National Liberation Front, UIC and many more alongside Libya. The Eritrean government should see that if it attempts to destabilize others, the nations around it are financially able to destabilize Eritrea back anytime they want. Particularly they are able to withstand such attempt by Eritrea because they are bigger and capable. Also, the trick Shabea uses when it says “the minority regime in Ethiopia” are an old, overused and useless method of propaganda. When Ethiopians see an article on any Internet news website and if the article’s heading starts with “minority regime,” they automatically know it is an Eritrean government’s propaganda article. It is the propaganda it has been using to fuel secessionist groups like OLF and ONLF. While the fact a minority is represented in the highest part of government should be the pride of Ethiopia, according to the Eritrean government it should be condemned. This is a sign of backwardness. When minorities like Ethiopian Afar, Gurage, Somali and Hadiyas hold high positions in Ethiopian government; this should applauded and be a sign of progress not a sign of minority regression or illegitimacy.
Various propaganda techniques used by the Eritrean government are overused and mostly comical than practical. It has randomly tried to accuse the Ethiopian government of killings. It has exploited ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia by saying they are some kind of genocide. It has tried everything in the textbook. Now it is trying to justify supporting terrorists. Instead of finding ways to provoke its neighbors and spread propaganda, it would have been helpful both for Ethiopians and Eritreans if the Eritrean government improved its country’s economy instead. When Eritreans are living in peace and when their country develops, Ethiopians will also live in peace and their country will prosper. Most of all, Eritrea would not have been forced to use millions of dollars for its military because it feels insecure. A country that has very limited fertile land and natural resources can not afford to waste so much money on military. What the Eritrean government does not know is that Eritreans will gain two things at the same time if their economy grows and their government stops provoking other nations. Because if this happens, its neighbors would also not find it necessary to stop and take over a mischievous Eritrea. The craving of opposition parties in Ethiopia to take back Eritrea would have been changed if Eritrea was not destabilizing the horn of Africa.
Maybe the last of the Eritrean government's tricks were drained out too late because, now, everyone is visiting Mogadishu and it is not to take a vacation. It is not to shop at the beautiful Bakara Market in Mogadishu. And anymore propaganda and tricks from the Eritrean government are only a burial insult to its remaining (if any) intelligence.

Eritrean authorities arrests Journalist Ahmed Omar Sheikh

The Eritrean authorities has arrested, last Monday, the known Eritrean journalist and broadcaster Ahmed Omar Sheikh and took him to an unknown destination, according to sources close to him. ECMS could not confirm the status of the news from a neutral source. However, informed sources did not rule out that for the fact that a large number of journalists working in the official media had been arrested in the last few weeks without giving any clear justification for that.

Ahmed Omer Sheikh

It is noteworthy that colleague Ahmed Omar Sheikh, had been working as editor and broadcaster in the Eritrean television and radio since 1993, and he published a number of literary publications in the field of poetry and novel.

The Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdou has denied the arrest of journalists indicating that it was routine investigation. However, Reporters without Borders organization challenged the minister of having listed the names of those detained in unknown places and one of whom was released.

KAMPALA: JOURNALISTS DECRY HARASSMENT AND ABUSES, COMMIT TO DEFENDING HUMAN RIGHTS

EAST AND HORN OF AFRICA HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS NETWORK
Press Statement

EHAHRDN Index: UGA 035/008/2006 (Public)

29th November 2006

A three day sub-regional Journalists’ Conference concluded today at the Windsor Lake Victoria Hotel in Entebbe, Uganda, with a call from journalists to their governments in the sub region to respect and uphold media freedom.

The Conference attracted 40 men and women journalists from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Somaliland, Sudan including South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. It was organized by the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) and provided training and discussions about human rights reporting, and supporting each other as human rights defenders. It was facilitated by Amnesty International, Article 19, Frontline, Peace Brigade International, and the Human Rights House Foundation Network, among others.Journalists shared experiences and ideas on a wide range of human rights and security issues not only affecting them as individuals, but also the profession. They included among others: torture, threats to their lives, self censorship, laws aimed at restricting and deterring journalists’ work, detention, unfair trials and confiscation of publications.

Whereas the journalists commended the relative press freedom in Uganda, Tanzania and Somaliland, the situation of the press described in other countries was of great concern.

Eritrea has kept over 16 journalists behind bars since 2001, when the entire private press was banned, and nine more state-media journalists were very recently detained and held without charge. Ethiopia also has 16 journalists on trial on false charges of instigating violence, which could carry the death penalty. Dozens of Somali journalists have been arrested in the past two years, but all were freed after vigorous campaigning by local and international media groups.

At the end of the conference, participants committed themselves to increase their reporting on human rights issues and human rights violations, and to support and protect fellow men and women journalists in their defense of human rights.

They called upon the governments and authorities of East and Horn of Africa sub-region to respect and protect freedom of the press. The final conference resolution included the following:

• Express support for women journalists facing gender discrimination and encourage reporting on women’s rights issues

• Demand that the governments in the sub region release all detained journalists and end unlawful acts against freedom of press by law enforcement bodies.

• Request reform of all laws, which curtail freedom of opinion, information and the media.

• Appeal to the Eritrean government to accept a delegation of journalists from the sub-region to visit detained journalists “disappeared” for five years.

• Call upon the UN Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and the African Union Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression to conduct a fact-finding mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea; and to propose concrete actions against governments that decline to cooperate or decline to implement the international and regional instruments on freedom of expression which they have ratified, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

• Urge the international community and donors to support journalists and their associations and unions in the sub-region, and to strongly advocate for their media rights and freedoms, and civil rights and liberties.

• Appeal to the UN, African Union (AU), League of Arab States (LAS) and Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to restrain governments and authorities in the sub-region from their growing acts of intolerance of freedom of expression.For further information, please contact:
Tumusiime Kabwende DeoPress Officer
Mobile: +256-712-075721
Regional Coordination Office
EAST AND HORN OF AFRICA HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS PROJECT (EHAHRDP) Human Rights House, Plot 1853, Lulume Rd., Nsambya P.O. Box 11027 Kampala, Uganda Phone: +256-41-510263(general)/ext.112 +256-41-267118(direct) Fax: +256-41-267117 E-mail: ehahrdp@yahoo.ca, hshire@yorku.ca

pride coming before fall

http://zete9.asmarino.com/index.php?itemid=711

CPJ: Keeping the spotlight on Eritrea's jailed journalists

Written by Alexis Arieff
Wednesday, 04 October 2006
Slipping from Sight

Their jailed colleagues vanishing in secret prisons, exiled Eritrean Journalists seek to bring attention.

By Alexis Arieff

Khaled Abdu, once the top editor of Admas, a private weekly in Eritrea, fled his homeland in 2000 after getting a series of threats from government agents. He was one of the lucky ones, as it turned out. In a massive crackdown in September 2001, the government rounded up and jailed many of Eritrea’s most prominent journalists and closed down all of the country’s private news outlets.

The fate of those jailed journalists has become ever more precarious as this nation along the Red Sea has grown increasingly isolated. Abdu and several colleagues, believing they might be the best way to draw international attention to their imprisoned colleagues, have launched an association of journalists in exile to report on the cases.At least 13 journalists are behind bars in Eritrea, with two more enduring prolonged forced labor euphemistically called “national service.” These grim statistics have made Eritrea one of the world’s five biggest jailers of journalists for five consecutive years, according to CPJ research. The imprisoned journalists have not been formally charged. Eritrean authorities have refused to discuss their whereabouts, the conditions of their imprisonment, or the precise nature of the allegations against them.In a CPJ interview, presidential spokesman Yemane Gebremeskel denied that the journalists were imprisoned because of what they wrote, saying only that they “were involved in acts against the national interest of the state.” He said “the substance of the case is clear to everybody” but declined to detail any supporting evidence.“We feel like they are being forgotten,” said Abdu, whose Admas colleague, Said Abdelkader, is among those imprisoned. “Unless we address what happened, the outside world cannot do more.”either the Red Cross nor family members are allowed to visit the jailed reporters, making it difficult to determine the journalists’ health and, in some cases, whether they are alive. What little information can be gleaned trickles out through members of the exile community. In 2002, for example, several journalists who escaped the country alerted CPJ that nine imprisoned journalists had been moved from police cells in the capital, Asmara, to secret detention facilities after they attempted a hunger strike.The newly inaugurated Association of Eritrean Journalists in Exile (AEJE) plans to disseminate information about the jailed journalists and other media-related issues affecting Eritrea. The association has launched a Web site, www.aeje.org, and its members stay connected through an e-mail listserv.“We want to advocate for our colleagues who are in jail,” said Aaron Berhane, a founding editor of a banned private newspaper, Setit, who now lives in Toronto.

“We want to record their history, the work that they have done, to bring their issue to the public.” Two of Berhane’s former co-workers are among those behind bars, including Fesshaye “Joshua” Yohannes, a 2002 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award. Berhane escaped prison by going into hiding, then fleeing to Sudan.

Several exiled journalists told CPJ that they struggle with a sense of survivor’s guilt that they made it out of Eritrea, while others did not. They left behind not only those who were arrested, but also family members and friends who struggle with the daily hardship of living in one of the world’s poorest and most repressive countries.“Our major task is to address the human rights violations in Eritrea ... and to prepare ourselves for Eritrea to have a free and independent media,” Abdu said. AEJE’s two dozen members live around the world, primarily in Canada, the United States, and, like Abdu, in Sweden. They receive information from covert networks that include friendly government employees and security agents. AEJE’s membership counts former journalists from private newspapers, former state media employees, and diaspora Eritreans who have become involved in media in their adopted countries.ritrea gained full independence from Ethiopia in 1993, after Eritrean and Ethiopian guerrilla fighters overthrew a ruthless military regime that had ruled over both territories. Journalism enjoyed a brief heyday in the ensuing years. The nation’s first private newspapers were started in Asmara amid widespread optimism over the country’s future. “We never dreamt of going out of Eritrea,” recalled Abdu, who helped found Admas during that time.While initially supportive of the revolutionary government, Eritrea’s young journalists soon began to question increasingly autocratic government policies and to press for democratic reform. A backlash followed. Neil Skene, an American journalist who led U.S. State Department-backed training seminars for journalists in Asmara between 1999 and 2001, said a turning point came in 2000, when security forces briefly arrested several journalists, releasing them with warnings to tread carefully. “You could see the demise of democracy,” he told CPJ. “These guys without any history of democracy, suddenly they don’t have any idea how to handle dissent.”On September 18, 2001, with world attention focused on the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Eritrean government banned the private press for allegedly threatening state security and “jeopardizing national unity.” About a dozen independent journalists were rounded up by security forces, and, with the press out of business, the government canceled a general election. Hundreds of purported government opponents have since been jailed without due process.The irony of Eritrea’s bleak situation is that international media coverage has decreased as the political and humanitarian situation has worsened. While information flows more quickly and freely in much of Africa today, Eritrea has gone the other direction. It has expelled international aid organizations, United Nations-backed monitors, and a foreign journalist who worked for Reuters and the BBC.o succeed, the AEJE must overcome fear and division that have kept many members of the diaspora from criticizing the government. Tesfaldet A. Meharenna, an Eritrean living in the United States who founded the popular Web site Asmarino, said it has not been easy to mobilize an outcry on human rights issues, partly because some exiled Eritreans fear that family members back home could be targeted. “The government works hard to play on that fear,” he told CPJ.Others keep quiet out of pride and a sense of solidarity. There is “a kind of shared belief on the part of many that they’re a little country under siege from a hostile world, and they can never say anything that’s going to make it look bad,” said Dan Connell, a U.S. journalist who has written several books on Eritrea.The AEJE’s mission is made more difficult, too, by President Isaias Afewerki’s legendary capriciousness and disdain for international opinion. One heartrending scenario unfolded in November 2005, when the government briefly released Dawit Isaac of Setit, only to re-arrest him two days later, after he phoned his wife to tell her he’d been freed. Isaac holds dual Eritrean and Swedish citizenship, and his brief release came after behind-the-scenes lobbying by the Swedish government. Some observers speculated that Isaac’s re-arrest stemmed from the attention given his release.“We should have all kept quiet,” Meharenna said ruefully. Then, seeming to correct himself, he added: “See, that’s what they want you to do.”The AEJE’s struggle is, in many ways, a battle against hopelessness. Abdu said he understands the fear and conflicted sentiments among the exiled community. “But we must go beyond that,” he said. “We have to feel like every Eritrean is our family.”
Alexis Arieff is a freelance writer and former senior research associate for CPJ’s Africa program.

Source: : http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2006/DA_fall_06/prisoner/eritrea.html
Also posted: http://asmarino.com
Discussion Available At http://zete9.asmarino.com/index.php?itemid=643

As Eritrea suffers, the world looks away

Written by Neil Skene
Wednesday, 02 February 2005
St Petersburg, Jan 30, 2005 (St Petersburg Times) - Matthewos sensed the danger. When last I saw him, in April 2001, he handed me his photograph. "Just in case," he said.
I dismissed the concern. It was a cheery spring day in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Matthewos Habteab was the editor of Meqaleh, one of nearly a dozen newspapers that had sprung up over the previous four years. The young country had passed a constitution and elected as president the guerrilla hero who had won Eritrea’s independence from Ethiopia.St Petersburg, Jan 30, 2005 (St Petersburg Times) - Matthewos sensed the danger. When last I saw him, in April 2001, he handed me his photograph. "Just in case," he said.
I dismissed the concern. It was a cheery spring day in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Matthewos Habteab was the editor of Meqaleh, one of nearly a dozen newspapers that had sprung up over the previous four years. The young country had passed a constitution and elected as president the guerrilla hero who had won Eritrea’s independence from Ethiopia. Even U.S. first lady Hillary Clinton had come to visit. The people, including the journalists, were loyal and hopeful when I first visited in October 1999.
But the promising future didn’t happen.
Today Matthewos and 13 other journalists are in their fourth year in prison somewhere in Eritrea - the location undisclosed, charges unfiled, hearings unheld, families unwelcome. The journalists were rounded up and their papers shut down on Sept. 18, 2001, just a week after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. The warrior-president, Isaias Afewerki, embraced tyranny while the world was looking elsewhere.
The arrests of others followed within weeks: 11 prominent Eritreans who had drafted a protest of the government’s failure to implement the country’s constitution; two Eritreans employed by the U.S. Embassy; and about 200 Christians, many of them members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, in a crackdown on those practicing outside the four sanctioned faiths. Some of the Christians arrested "reportedly have been subjected to severe torture and pressured to renounce their faith," says John Hanford, U.S. ambassador for international religious freedom. They’re all still in prison.
"It is not only the arrest of 14 (journalists). It is the complete arrest of public expression and ideas," says Haileab Kidane, a founder of the newspaper Admas, who left the country in time and now lives in Pretoria, South Africa.
So why don’t we do anything? Because President Isaias plays to U.S. priorities. Eritrea is important "to stem the presence and influence of terrorism in the Horn of Africa," says the State Department.
The department has issued a grand total of one news release specifically about Eritrea in the last three years. It said this: "Eritrea is committed to fighting global terrorism, and it has been a solid partner with the United States in that battle in the past. Eritrea was one of the first nations to sign on as part of the Coalition of the Willing (in Iraq)."
While our government says it has warned Eritrea of possible cuts in U.S. aid because of the oppression, nothing has happened.
So tyranny and brutality in out-of-the-way places are as ignored today as the genocide in Rwanda was so famously ignored by the Clinton administration a decade ago.
The film Hotel Rwanda, now in theaters, tells the story of a gentle manager of an elegant hotel whose courage saved hundreds of Tutsis from massacre by Hutus in Rwanda. But individual acts of courage happen all over Africa. Visit the now-empty political prison off the coast of Cape Town in South Africa where Nelson Mandela was in prison. It was filled with people, many of them just unheralded foot soldiers in the struggle against apartheid. In all directions from Rwanda - from South Africa to Liberia, from Sudan to the Ivory Coast - everywhere are stories of individuals who risked their lives for the cause of freedom.
But America remains on the periphery.
Even today in Sudan’s genocide, American aid consists of supplies and peace talks. No American is standing guard on behalf of those under attack, the role that the heroic Rwandan hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina, so desperately and unsuccessfully sought from the U.N. commander in Rwanda. It is startling, in the Rwanda film, that the one person outside Rwanda who seems to care enough to do something is the president of Belgium’s Sabena Airlines, who uses his influence to get the French to stop the machete assault on the people at Sabena’s Hotel Mille Collines.
As for Eritrea, thousands are trying to leave every day, Haileab tells me in an e-mail. But not every country welcomes them. Despite a plea from the U.N. Human Rights Commission that countries not deport Eritreans even if asylum is denied, Libya put 76 Eritrean exiles on a cargo plane home last August. Desperate, the Eritreans used knives to hijack the plane - to Sudan, of all places, where they turned themselves over to authorities and sought asylum. Sudan, according to Amnesty International, has already tried and convicted 15 of them and sentenced them to five years in prison, followed by deportation.
Press freedom organizations have appealed unsuccessfully for the journalists’ release. The ejection of a BBC and Reuters correspondent three months ago prompted the activist group Reporters Without Borders in Paris to brand Eritrea "Africa’s biggest prison for journalists."
On Dec. 7, the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum in Paris sought the release of Dawit Isaac, who returned to Eritrea from Sweden in 1996 to establish the Setit newspaper. Setit may have inspired the crackdown with its call for democracy in the fall of 2000.
The Eritrean journalists came from other jobs to start their newspapers in the late 1990s. They had little experience but a lot of enthusiasm. Many of them came to a series of seminars I taught in Asmara starting in 1999 on the basics of journalism: finding story ideas, interviewing, writing well and developing critical editorials.
On a Friday night at the end of the first session, four of the editors took me to dinner. They chose their favorite spicy national dishes, such as lamb, and we drank and laughed and told stories.
Matthewos was one of them. Another was Yousef Mohamed Ali, once a fighter for Eritrean freedom and later chief editor of Tsigenay, who was part of a roundup of eight journalists in October 2000. Yousef was tortured, but he returned to his newspaper and was in my last seminar in April 2001. He is in prison with the others now.
Two others who were at that dinner escaped before the 2001 roundup.
One, Milkias Mihretab, editor of Keste Debena, had also been detained in that first roundup. This time he escaped through Sudan, made his way to the United States, gained asylum and started a paper in Tigrinya, the native language.
Khaled Abdu, editor of Admas, also escaped and is in Sweden, still seeking asylum. He and Aaron Berhane of Setit, another seminar participant who escaped, have received Hellman/Hammitt awards from Human Rights Watch, given to persecuted writers around the world.
Others from my seminars are among those in prison: Amanuel Asrat, chief editor of Zemen; Temesgen Gebreyesus of Keste Debena; Said Abdulkadir of Admas; Semret Seyum of Setit; and Dawit Habtemichael of Meqaleh.
Matthewos was not the only one who had sensed danger. But the journalists kept doing their work. They sacrificed their own freedom in a desire to tell the truth and make their country a real democracy. The rest of the world has barely noticed.
Neil Skene, a lawyer and writer living in Tallahassee and former editor of Congressional Quarterly in Washington, taught journalism programs in Eritrea on three trips from 1999-2001 on grants from the U.S. State Department. He taught similar programs in Swaziland and South Africa last year.