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Behind Prison Walls | Eritrea’s Secret Jails
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.”
Alexis Arieff is a freelance writer and former senior research
associate for CPJ’s Africa program.
Slipping from Sight
Their jailed colleagues vanishing in secret prisons, exiled Eritrean journalists
seek to bring attention.
By Alexis Arieff
Neil Skene
Imprisoned journalist Temesken
Ghebreyesus, left, is seen here shortly
before being arrested in 2001.
Colleague Milkias Mihreteab, right,
fled the country and is a member of
the exiled Eritrean press group.
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.”
Neither 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.
Eritrea 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
President Isaias Afewerki’s administration is unwilling to
disclose details about 15 journalists jailed or held against
their will.
AP/Jean-Marc Bouju
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.
To 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.” ■
64 Fall | Winter 2006
Dangerous Assignments
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