Welcome to Asmarino Independent.

Independent UN expert stresses need to improve human rights situation in Eritrea

“I am particularly concerned about the increasing number of unaccompanied children crossing the border without the knowledge of their families,” Ms. Keetharuth said. “Children regularly mentioned dysfunctional family circumstances due to the long absence of the father, most of the time because of conscription, lack of educational opportunities and the fear of forced conscription into indefinite national service as major reasons for their decisions to flee.”

The Special Rapporteur voiced particular concern about the indefinite national service, the ongoing practice of arbitrary arrest and incommunicado detention in inhumane conditions and widespread torture, both physical and psychological, during interrogation by the police, military and security forces. Mere suspicion appears to be enough for somebody to be subjected to interrogation and detention without charge or without being brought before a court of law.

Letter to King Abdalla Bib Abdulaziz Ale Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

We are certain that Your Majesty will, as always, use your wisdom and enlightened leadership to look into the problems related to Eritreans who are on their way to be deported to their country because of the situation in which their country currently lives and which the international community is daily and closely monitoring. Therefore, we urge Your Majesty to intervene and take the necessary measures that stops the deportation of Eritreans to a country that will receive them with open prisons, drawn swords, indefinite military conscription and forced labour, programs of human degradation, religious intolerance, humiliation and total disregard to the dignity and respect of women who were well-protected by your laws, virtues, traditions and culture.

Interview with Mr. John Stauffer, president of the America Team for displaced Eritreans.

The following is an excerpt of accumulated questions sent by interested Eritreans at various times to the editorial section of the America Team to be answered by Mr. John Stauffer, president of the America Team for Displaced Eritreans. Mr. John Stauffer, 70, is an American who since 2004 has been working continuously to help asylum-seeking Eritreans get refuge and assist them in living a stable life wherever they are relocated. Mr. Stauffer is a retiree after 38 years of honorable work in U.S. industry, and has after retirement dedicated all his time working day and night to help Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers with advocacy and covering pertinent expenses often with his own resources. No wonder, today, many Eritreans call him the “father indeed of Eritreans in need.” Direct to the questions:

They Shine, On each day !

when declared war & hostility  sub-merges
trapped in the mind set of vengeance
compassion & care, things of the past
live for the moment, with the legacy of hate

when the world seems to give up on us
nothing is more comforting to witness
caring voices, knocking on every doors
the Elsas, The Selams & the Merons

the virtues of common good
carved on a stone & written in blood
their commitment on every occasion
unflinching support to the nation

Eritrea: Rampant repression 20 years after independence

Amnesty International believes that at least 10,000 political prisoners have been imprisoned by the government of President Isaias Afewerki, who has ruled since the country’s independence in 1993. With no known exception, not a single political prisoner has ever been charged with a crime or tried, had access to a lawyer or been brought before a judge or a judicial officer to assess the legality and necessity of the detention.

In the vast majority of cases, the prisoners’ families are not informed of their whereabouts, and often never hear from their relative again after they are arrested. Torture – for punishment, interrogation and coercion -  is widespread. Practitioners of unregistered religions are tortured to force them to recant their faith.

Amnesty International has received many reports of deaths in detention, as a result of torture, appalling conditions or suicide. These include accounts of prisoners dying of treatable diseases such as malaria and illnesses caused by excessive heat.

Eritrea Unplugged: Dumera to Ras Kasar

Just a territory on a map
From Dumera to Ras Kasar
Unknown to the majority; a nation state
Lies idle beside a coastline; frozen in liquid state

Flanked by a landscape on the side; under extreme heat
Crossed by three seasons in a day
Still oblivious; to the outside world
Deeply immersed in its own; on blindfold

The people; like aliens in disguise
In scattered cultures and customs
Displaced within their land; spread across the globe
Identify themselves as Eritreans; under probe

Like dead souls crossing the sea
For an idea to die for eternity
Swallowing the young; the misguided
Crying alongside the living; the wretched

Anger in Ethiopia after Eritrea supports Egypt’s “right” to Nile water

ADDIS ABABA: Anger is fomenting in Ethiopia following last month’s statements from the Eritrean government over who has a right to Nile River water, which has become a contentious issue in recent years between Ethiopia and Egypt, who claims the lion’s share of water from the world’s largest waterway.

The Eritrean government said in April that it supported Egypt’s position over a controversial colonial-era treaty that grants Egypt a right a majority of the Nile’s water resources. ...

The Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, has highly welcomed Eritrea’s position towards Egypt’s “historic rights” over the sharing of the water of the Nile River.

My Reflections of the 2nd High-Level Tana Forum on Security in Africa

My attendance in the Forum gave me the opportunity to present the plight of victims of human trafficking in the Sinai Desert (mostly Eritreans) in a forum which proved to be the most important forum that I ever attended on this particular issue. One thing that really shocked me was the knowledge gap about the issue that I came to realise among the majority of attendants of the Forum. Many of them, including siting and former heads of state, were shocked to learn that such kind of atrocities are currently taken place in our time and continent without much knowledge at the continent level. Of course to a very limited degree, there was a candid admittance, such as the one I heard from the President of Sudan, Omer Hassan al-Bashir. But overall, the lack of sound knowledge basis I witnessed among the participants was shocking. Some did not even know there were major documentaries by Al-Jazeera, BBC, CNN and other media outlets about the crisis. In a forum which convened to discuss major African issues of security, it was a bit troubling to see the lack of awareness at such a level. It made me realise that the issue was not properly communicated to those who can make a difference. ...