writers in prison committee report - PEN Canada

DAWIT
ISAAK
ethiopia
“We don’t release him. We don’t take [him] to trial. We know how to deal with
him and others like him and we have our own ways of dealing with that.”
ERITREAN PRESIDENT ISALAS AFEWORKI
dawit isaak is one of a group of independent journalists
to have disappeared into the Eritrean prison system after
a government crackdown in 2001. They were imprisoned
without charge, and subject to harsh treatment, including
torture. Nine of them were adopted as honorary members
by PEN Canada. Four of those are believed to have died
in prison.
Isaak was born in October 1964 in what was at the time
part of Ethiopia. To escape the violence of the Eritrean
war of independence he went to Sweden in 1987, where
he gained dual Swedish-Eritrean citizenship.
He returned to his homeland in 1991, when Eritrea
gained de facto independence, and founded the country’s
first independent newspaper setit, and worked as a
reporter for the publication. In 1998 a border dispute
between Eritrea and Ethiopia sparked a fresh round of
violence and Isaak again sought refuge in Sweden, this
time settling his wife and children there.
The conflict had provoked a great deal of criticism of
the Eritrean government and in 2001, an open letter signed
by fifteen government ministers calling for democratic
2000s
reform was delivered to the government. The letter
(along with general commentary) was covered in the
independent Eritrean media including setit. The
government response was to arrest those who signed
the letter, and those who published it.
In November that year the local Swedish consul held
a brief meeting with Isaak in jail. Later, in April 2002,
the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that Isaak
had been hospitalized suffering from injuries sustained
through torture. In November 2005 he was released
from prison, but hopes that he would be allowed to return
to Sweden were dashed when he was re-arrested two
days later.
Dawit Isaak remains in prison. In February 2009 it
was reported that he was seriously ill.
Isaak’s case has attracted a great deal of attention in
Sweden, since he is a citizen of that country. In an interview
with Swedish television last year, Eritreatn president
Isalas Afeworki was asked about his whereabouts.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even care where he
is or what he is doing. He did a big mistake.”
PEN CANADA 39