”Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains."

”Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains."

These words were written by none other than the famous French philosopher and playwright Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau meant to argue that we as human beings are born free into this world, and yet from the moment we utter loud cries and take in our first breaths we are shackled by invisible chains. We become subject to the rules of the society we live in, we are given names, identities, races, cultures and perhaps, perhaps if one is lucky enough to be born in a free country like Sweden, he or she are endowed with freedom of choice and speech.

One of the inherent freedoms you get in Sweden, where I live, is the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is an inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment. I could freely tell people that I hate Fredrick Reinfelt, the current Swedish Prime Minister and express my dissent through whatever means that is available to me against his Government, and yet no harm would come my way as we are free to express ourselves as we see fit within the confines of the rule of law in this country. Protection, in this regard is enshrined in the constitution of Sweden. A simple case in point in this regard and the holistic perception and practice of 'free speech' is the 'public' demonstration against the 'so-called ganging up' on Eritrea by the Swedish media that is scheduled to take place in the 7th of October in Stockholm by supporters of the Eritrean government. Some Swedish-Eritreans are planning to demonstrate and protest against the Swedish media. And I am sure they do not expect any threat or harm to come their way for taking part in that protest. They have the Swedish constitution to thank for that.

But as a direct contrast to what's being unfolding here, in Eritrea no demonstration has taken place in the past 10 years, and it’s not because Eritreans are content with what goes in their country. They are not content about the fact that the politics of their country has been a one-man-show for the past 20 years. They are not content with a president who publicly states that there won't be elections in Eritrea for the coming 40 years. They are not content with the fact that they are forcibly conscripted into the army for indefinite time. They are not content about the lack of basic provisions and so on. I could go on and on but I'm not so sure if I have enough ink to document all the discontents in Eritrea in this article. In short, in Eritrea, if you express your opposition to the government, if you express your dissent in any way let alone publicly demonstrate, you would be jailed in an undisclosed location, a prison in which even your closest family can't visit you and without access to a lawyer or a court of law. You would languish in jail; perhaps die there too, just like those who have died.

It is very important to go backward in to the history of Eritrea to understand what is happening in Eritrea today and look for a solution. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) is the only party that is ruling the country. From its inception was one of the most politically closed movements in the world. As a guerilla movement combating against a conventional army, one may expect a certain degree of closed political culture. However, after Eritrean independence, the closed political culture continued pervasively and intensively. High level government officials, journalists, businessmen, intellectuals, common people from all walks of life, and above all religious leaders – who have nothing to do with politics, were sent to prison and none of them appeared in a court of law.

To exacerbate matters further, the Government of Eritrea, fearing for possible criticism from private media outlets, and to keep the general public in darkness, parallel to the mass imprisonment of citizens, closed all private media outlets in September 2001. Thus, the ban of the private media transformed the Eritrean Government into a full-fledged, strong, unparalleled totalitarian government in the contemporary world. At international platforms, the little country at the coast of the Red Sea became one of the notorious threats to democracy, rule of law, basic human rights, and international norms. It’s no wonder my country is those days is referred as the 'North Korea of Africa’ informally.

Just ten years back, on the 23rd of September 2001 ten journalists working in the private media were arrested in Eritrea. One of them, Dawit Isaac, a Swedish national of Eritrean descent, was among those journalists. At the same moment, all the private press was closed. How would you feel if the Swedish government decided to close all the private press including Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Metro, City and Expressen in the same day?

The case of Dawit is too big to examine in this article. However, I would like to point out that Dawit held dual nationalities. He was a Swedish national, who paid his taxes in this country, and he was also an Eritrean. Supporters of the Eritrean Government can't keep on insisting that his case be left alone as he is an Eritrean and only for Eritreans to deal with. Dawit is lucky to be Swedish. The Swedish Government and media have called time and again for his release. To say the least, his family is taken care of through moral support. I wish I could say it is the same for the families of about other imprisoned journalists like Amanuel Asrat, Medhanie Habte and Said Abdelkadir. All those journalists that are detained in my country are still held incommunicado and are yet to be charged or tried for any offence. They are not allowed any contact with the outside world or with each other. An important question that I should ask the reader at this junction is how does it feel when you learn that a person has been held hostage in an indefinite location by an authority without the due process of law? A place nobody knows, including his immediate family members? How about if you come to realize that it is not only one person but thousands of them? This is the reality of my little home country Eritrea.  So what you and I take for granted in Sweden and the west, unfortunately, lacks elsewhere, especially in Eritrea.

The crackdown on private press hurt my country. For those newspapers provided detailed information on issues of high importance to national interest. Traditionally, the Eritrean Government has a history of providing incomplete, complicated and highly jargoned information with the objective of obscuring the truth. Thus, through continuous probes, interviews, and investigations the private newspapers provided detailed information to the general public. Not only this but the Eritrean private media outlets were seen by many as catalysts of democratic transformation and many appreciated their services in the provision of alternative information to the general public. Somehow, the common truth managed to emerge from chaotic pile of information and is information. A quest for objectivity was the result. But After September 2001, Eritrea became a closed state where information is highly monopolized among few government officials. Let alone the general public, even members of the government are not told what is happening around. Thus, this time only few privileged officials and most of them higher army commanders and security personnel - which constitute a small slice of the Eritrean population - have monopoly of information. This is one of the reasons why the Government of Eritrea still has supporters; all those who still support the brutal regime tend to be misinformed expats living outside  their country and choose to believe the lies they see on Eri-TV, the government owned and only TV station in Eritrea. To this date, issues of great importance to the people are rarely covered by government media in Eritrea. There are people who try to get information from the internet, however as Eritrea has low internet penetration – which is between  2.5 – 3%, and as individuals who visit independent websites are severely punished, there is no way where people could get independent information. Alternatively the general public depends on rumors. Frequently, rumors circulate for several weeks before their official release. Perhaps all this sounds like a nightmare in Sweden, but this is the actual reality for 4 million Eritreans living in Eritrea.

Let me conclude by giving a brief answers for those supporters of government who are accusing me of being a paid-agent and a traitor for my activism against the brutal regime in my country. First off, there has been that issue about the 2% income tax imposed on Eritreans living in the Diaspora. In fact, according to Alenalki.com ( a pro-government Eritrean website) , The documentary was produced by Eritreans, unlike what the writers at Alenalki state, and it has been written, researched and filmed by Voice of Meselna Delina, a radio station belonging to the opposition. SVT's role was following our work and of course, they used our film in the documentary. According to the same website, at this time the intention of the Swedish media is to "simply blackmail the country and degrade its citizens through hiring mercenaries with hidden cameras to get in to the Eritrean Embassy as if it was a place of illegal criminals." We're no hired mercenaries, and all of us are Eritreans, Eritreans who are deeply disturbed by the evil that has taken hold of our beloved country for which our brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers have paid their lives for.

 As for the part that says "Sooner or later the intruders shall be put to justice", we can hardly wait, as that would mean having us tried in a legal court of law and that we'd have access to lawyers and we still would be protected by a constitution, which unfortunately, still lacks in Eritrea. If you are so unhappy with the Swedish government and Swedish media, why not move back to Eritrea? A country ruled by one man, one party, where there is no freedom of speech, no constitution and where there are more prisons than schools? If you wish to return I will be more than happy to provide one way plane ticket to Asmara. Let me conclude by quoting Rousseau once again. Along the same sentence in which he wrote his former quote, he also wrote "those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they."

Meron Estefanos
October 6, 2011

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