[AI] Asmarino Independent

Members Preparatory Committee for National Conference @ Paltalk This Saturday

We welcome you to join us in our “ EDA and National Conference For Democratic Change Series Discussion” this Saturday evening at paltalk. We are honored to present to you members of the newly established preparatory committee for National Conference as our guest speakers for this paltalk program. The preparatory committee is composed of representatives of the Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA) and representatives of Eritrean civil society groups and the committee had just completed a weeklong meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and set July 30, 2010 as the National Conference date. 

People’s Movement for Peace in Eritrea and the Horn of Africa

In accordance to the mandate given to the Organising Committee a peace charter has been drafted and preparations for the forthcoming conference are well underway. The Conference will be held in the UK from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd May 2010; potential participants have been short-listed; invitations are being processed and conference programme is being finalised. The major aim of the conference will be to ratify the charter which in turn will be the basis for a grass-roots led peace movement.

Efforts are being made to ensure a well balanced composition of attendants; reflecting the social realities of Eritrea.  Gender will also be taken into account.  It is anticipated that representatives of political groups, civil societies, religious institutions, media, as well as academics and activists will attend the conference. 

UNHCR: Eritreans by far largest refugee group in Israel

90% of Eritrean asylum-seekers are men, many of whom fled indefinite compulsory military duty.

Eritreans constitute by far the largest population of asylum-seekers in Israel, according to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.

Sharon Harel, assistant protection officer for the UNHCR in Tel Aviv, said Monday there were around 8,500 Eritrean refugees in the country, as opposed to some 5,000 to 6,000 from Sudan.

The Exclusionary List: Hizbawi Me’kete and the Abuse of Language

Suppose you want to fence your plot of land, with the primary intention of marking your property, so that nobody would be able to claim anything past those markers. It doesn't matter to you whether the fence is made up of stone, iron, wood or even planted bushes, so far as they equally serve the exclusionary purpose you have in mind. That is, there is nothing essential or intrinsic invested in each of those materials that would make them indispensable on their own; one can easily replace one with another without losing anything substantial in the process. One can dispense with any one of them, so far as there is another left that would equally do the exclusionary job. The same holds true of those priorities mentioned in the “constructive” list. In and of themselves, they hold no value for the Highdefites. To those who compiled the list, there is nothing indispensable in each of those priorities; they are willing to drop or replace any one of them so far as the revised list is able to deflect attention away from the regime’s atrocities. That is, the value of each priority exhausts itself so far as it is made to serve the exclusionary purpose.

Eritrea Continues to Hold Thousands of Prisoners of Faith

(London; 05-03-2010) Reports coming out of Eritrea indicate that the government continues to incarcerate thousands of Christian prisoners who refuse to seize practicing their faith in accordance to a government ban in place since May 2002. Over the last few months security officers raided homes and arrested several gospel singers from full gospel church and other banned churches.

Recent months have seen a spate of releases from of people who have been detained for periods ranging from several months to five years. This includes a group of 38 people from different churches across the country that was released from Meiter prison. However there still remain a number of prisoners whose conditions or whereabouts remain undisclosed.

US indicts Eritrean on charges of aiding Somali insurgents

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed an indictment March 8 accusing a suspect brought to the US from Nigeria, Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed, of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization al-Shabab, the main insurgent army in Somalia. Ahmed, 35 of Eritrea, is also charged with providing that support, conspiring to receive training from a foreign terrorist organization, and receiving the training.

'I fear every knock on my door'

She understands how they may have felt, because last year she jumped out of a flat window as the pressure of being an asylum seeker became too much for her. Ledia is 22 and from Eritrea - the country she fled because of fear of religious persecution. 

International Women’s Day Celebration in Eritrea

It is an established fact that women displaced by armed conflict – often living alone with their children – are frequently exposed to sexual violence, discrimination and intimidation. Many face poverty and social exclusion as well. International humanitarian law therefore includes specific provisions protecting women, for example when they are pregnant or as mothers of young children. Since Eritrea, however, is a law unto itself, and the ‘armed conflict’ has been over for decades, it is the phony ‘threat’ from Ethiopia used as a justification for national conscription which produces the same ill effects on Eritrean women. Women are forced into national service, where they are treated as subhuman, or are separated from their menfolk on the outside with no provision made for the most basic survival needs for themselves or their children.

'One Heart Betrayed' exposes human rights abuses in Eritrea

“One Heart Betrayed” is a container car exhibit designed to shed light the plight of thousands of political prisoners, or “prisoners of conscience,” who are imprisoned in steel shipping containers for such transgressions as religious beliefs, political views, or for family connections that run counter to authoritarian rule in the country of 5 million that lies on the Western coast of the Red Sea.

The exhibit will take place from 3-7 p.m., daily, in an area immediately south of the Sands Classroom Building on the West campus. An opening reception is scheduled March 23 at 5:30 p.m. south of Sands.

Eritrea: Isaias Afewerki is proof why there must be regime change

There is already a general consensus among Eritreans that the civic and political opposition should be working closely with the UN Security Council and all other players making sure the sanctions are comprehensive enough to include foreign trade and mining investments. Others are calling for the immediate and full implementation of the arms embargo, account freezes and travel bans on Eritrean leaders; some governments have already taken such action.

Other Eritreans also see the need to end PFDJ’s fundraising activities in foreign countries unless there are transparent guarantees that the money will go directly to Eritreans who need it most. Finally, there are those who think there should be a task force of experts to take on the possible questions of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the regime inside Eritrea and beyond its borders.