Eritrea: 13 years of Incarceration; Yet No Accusation

For 4745 days, to be exact for 13 years, our fellow journalist colleagues continued to languish and perish inside the notorious Eraero prison without getting any formal charges or a fair trial. Thirteen days could be painfully long enough for an innocent to endure incarceration, but 13 years without facing trial in underground desert prison is excruciating to hear let alone for any person to bear.

On 18 September 2001, the Asmara regime ordered the closure of all the nine vibrant independent newspapers, and a week later began mass arrest of all the journalists. Ever since then, we have learnt one after the other more than half a dozen of our colleagues losing their lives due to torture and harsh prison conditions. According to some sources, the fate of the remaining few could also be likewise, unless urgently something is done to avert their fate.

The repeated calls either to set them free or to give them a fair trial from various political actors, human rights organizations and press freedom advocacy groups met with deaf ears. Hence, we would like to call upon the international community to step up their effort and take some drastic measures thereby to talk the regime with the language it understands. In this case, a targeted sanction on the senior government and party officials should be imposed.

The international community’s outrage over the recent beheading of two American journalists in Syria by the Islamic State was understood only after the group posted the videos online for everyone to see. Hence, the United States and its allies are taking a military action to get rid of this group. Equally, for a savage and merciless regime in Asmara committing such atrocities has been business as usual for the last thirteen years. The regime has been silently killing more than a dozen journalists and a couple of dozen other senior political figures ever since September 11, 2001. The regime appears to outsmart the Islamic State only instead of boosting, it cleverly hides its dirty job from the public eye, thereby the dictator avoiding the attention of the international public it appropriately deserves. The dictator even tried to lie to the foreign media, stating that our colleagues have never existed in the first place. But one thing we know for certain, behind closed doors and in the arid hot desert Eraero prison the regime continues to murder innocent journalists slowly and painfully.

We strongly believe it is the responsibility of us citizens to rectify the situation at home but at the same time, the international community has also a shared responsibility in putting all the necessary pressure in facilitating democratic change.

For us it is haunting to hear the torture of our colleagues’ i.e both their legs and hands tied from behind 24/7 and this for the last thirteen years. Hence, we are in constant mourning, however, we will be restless until the day comes where we see our remaining colleagues freed and the culprits of this heinous crime brought into justice.  We will never forget them.

The Association of Eritrean Journalists in Exile (AEJE.)

Short biography of our colleagues in prison

Said Abdulkadir

Case Details :

Yosuf Mohamed Ali

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Yosuf Mohamed Ali was arrested many times before his final arrest on 18 September 2001. He is married with four children.

Amanuel Asrat

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Dawit Habtemichael

Dawit Habtemichael graduated from the University of Asmara in 1997, where he studied physics. He became a physics teacher at Asmara Comprehensive School , a post he held until his arrest.

He began writing whilst still studying and, in 1998, founded Meqaleh with Mattewos Habteab. During the border war with Ethiopia he was supportive of the Eritrean government. Mattewos Habteab was called up for military service in June 2000 (possibly because of his work as a journalist) and Dawit became acting editor. When hostilities ended he began to write more critically, calling for the constitution to be applied, elections held and restrictions on the press lifted.

When Mattewos was arrested following the closure of the private press on 18 September 2001, Dawit spent a few days in hiding before returning to his work as a teacher. He was then arrested and taken to the First Prison, Asmara . His current whereabouts and medical condition are unknown.

Dawit is unmarried and has no children. His mother died in 2000, but his father works as an administrator in the high school in Asmara.

Dawit Isaac

Dawit Isaac holds Swedish citizenship from asylum claim and refugee recognition in the 1980s. He is married with three children. When the journalists were moved to undisclosed places of detention after beginning a hunger strike in early April 2002, Dawit was separated and taken to hospital and held under guard there. However, after he was released from prison in 2005 for a brief period, he was made to join the other prisoners in Era’Ero. And he is held there ever since.

Seyoum Tsehaye

He is married with 3 children, and has a degree in French Education from a college in Ethiopia . He is well known among EPLF veterans (fighters and civilians).

Fessaye Yohannes (“Joshua”)

A well-known poet and dramatist, and director of an amateur cultural dance group. He studied Drama and Theatre in the UK for a year around 2000 (no further details available), and was the director of the EPLF cultural troupe that performed in Eritrea and abroad. He is married with three children.

Reportedly died in prison in 2003 in Embatkala prison.

Saleh Al-Jezaeri

Saleh Al-Jezaeri is reportedly being held in secret in a special security block known as “Karchele” (Italian for ‘prison'), which is behind the Second police station in Asmara .

Hamid Mohamed Said

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Gebrehiwot Keleta

Gebrehiwot Keleta is a former ELF information officer who had previously been abducted from Sudan in 1991 and secretly detained without trial in Eritrea for eight years.