Eritrea remains the only country in Africa not to have a single private news agency. In a surprisingly frank and lengthy recent interview with Sweden’s Tv4, Eritrea’s president, Isaias Afewerki, attacked independent journalists in his country “as funded by the CIA.” President Afewerki brushed off questions about jailed journalist Dawit Isaak, an Eritrean with Swedish nationality, stating that Sweden has “no right” to raise the issue. The President said that Sweden’s demands for more accountability surrounding the case was “part of a larger campaign waged by the CIA against Eritrea.” Regarding the case of Isaak, President Afewerki, obviously annoyed by the interviewer’s insistence, said “I don’t even care, I don’t even know what he is doing. He did a big mistake and he is accountable for what he did and I don’t waste time knowing what he is doing.” As for a free and fair trial, Afewerki replied, “We will not release him nor take him to trial. We know how to deal with him and others like him.”
Indeed, Eritrea has dealt with journalists in some of the most harsh and brutal ways of any nation in recent years. Starting in 2001, all independent media was closed and journalists were targeted in a widespread campaign to suppress freedom of expression and, more particularly, criticism of the ruling party, which was deemed “harmful to national security.” Afewerki, a former guerilla commander who helped secure his country’s independence from Ethiopia in 1993, has become Africa’s largest jailer of journalists and fourth largest worldwide after China, Cuba, and Burma. Though estimates are difficult given government secrecy and repression, Reporters without Borders has reported that there were at least 17 journalists imprisoned in Eritrea at the start of 2009. In addition, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, several journalists have died in custody since the 2001 crackdown. Moreover, countless others have fled the country into Sudan.
One of the latest journalists to be imprisoned is Daniel Kibrom, a journalist employed by Eritrea’s state-owned Eri TV. Kibrom has been held since October 2006 in a prison camp in the south of the country, where he is serving a sentence of five years of forced labor for trying to cross the border into Ethiopia, according to a report by Reporters Without Borders. According to a former prison guard who escaped Eritrea, Kibrom is likely working on a farm or quarry owned by a party elite or Afewerki ally.
In another incident in February 2009, Eritrean authorities ordered a raid on the premises of Radio Bana, a small station in the heart of the capital that puts out educational programs under the sponsorship of the education ministry. Its entire staff of around 50 journalists were arrested and taken without explanation. Some of the staff were released, but several remain in custody.
Eritrea was also put on Reporters without Borders’ Internet Enemies list due to the government’s insistence on blocking foreign news websites and blogs critical of the regime and its monitoring of internet cafes with armed guards. Moreover, attacks on press freedom are only one of a series of worrying trends in Eritrea. In its report State Repression and Indefinite Discrimination in Eritrea, Human Rights Watch outlines appalling human rights violations by the Eritrean government, including arbitrary arrest, torture, abysmal detention conditions, forced labor, and severe restrictions on freedom of movement, expression, and worship. During the Tv4 interview Afewerki stated, “We will not have elections at any time like the European model. We have our own ways of allowing participation. [Elections] are not an option.” Questioning the democratic bona fides of Europe and North America, Afewerki said bluntly, “Democracy is a way of cheating people.”
Tv4’s interview with Afewerki revealed the deep-seated paranoia in which the Eritrean government operates, particularly through its sense of betrayal towards the West, which has favored Ethiopia as a strategic regional partner, and through its own antipathy towards Ethiopia, against which it fought a decades-long war of independence. In its 2007 report, the Committee to Protect Journalists noted that “the government continued to raise the specter of Ethiopian aggression to justify its absolute control over the media.” Moreover, in 2007, Bush administration officials called Eritrea a “state-sponsor of terror,” further isolating the regime and making it suspicious of Western motives.
Though often overlooked, Eritrea has become one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Basic rights and freedoms are flouted as opposition members and members of the press are jailed or pushed into exile. In November 2009, Eritrea will be compelled to explain its poor human rights record to the United Nations Human Rights Council during its Universal Periodic Review. One of the most important foci for the review should be Eritrea’s obligations under article 19 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it signed and ratified. The review will give activists and concerned countries another opportunity to speak out against human rights violations in Eritrea and make the names of journalists imprisoned there be heard. Those names include: Mattewos Habteab, Temesgen Gebreyesus, Dawit Isaak, Isaac Abraham, Girmay Abraham, Dimtsi Hafash, Mulubrhan Habtegebriel, Meles Negusse, Fessehaye "Joshua" Yohannes (presumed dead), Dawit Habtemichael, Yusuf Mohamed Ali, Medhanie Haile, Temesgen Ghebreyesus, Emanuel Asrat, Said Abdulkader and Tura Kubaba.
PEN American Center has actively fought for the rights of many of the above mentioned journalists with a letter writing campaign found here.
