OPEN LETTER TO SHEIKH HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL-THANI

Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani
Emir of the State of Qatar

Via: The Qatar Embassy in London
Fax No: 0207 493 2819
    
                                                               14 June 2010                        
Your Excellency,

Human rights Concern - Eritrea is a London based human rights organisation which closely monitors the situation in and outside Eritrea, especially from the viewpoint of those who become refugees, and those who become prisoners in their own country and outside it.

We have noted in the media that the four British detainees have finally been released not least thanks to Your Excellency’s intervention. It is not the first time that you have exercised your authority to alter the course of events in Eritrea.
Your past intervention helped to resolve the border problems between Eritrea and Djibouti.

Since you evidently have influence with President Isaias Afewerki, will you not extend it further to resolve the long-term problems facing Eritrea?

The Eritrean people live in a country which is considered to be the worst, in terms of human rights, in the whole African continent. There is no law, as such, in Eritrea; nothing to protect the basic freedoms of an average person. There is insufficient food. No jobs. No university. The only university in the country was closed in 2006. There is enforced indefinite conscription. Imprisonment, rape, torture, and execution are daily events which go unreported in the censored media in a country which has no newspapers which are not run by the dictatorial state. There is No religious freedom.

These four Britons were written about in the British media, and the British government fought for them, but what about the eleven Eritrean government ex-ministers, generals and high ranking officials who, in 2001, were arrested and imprisoned incommunicado without trial for unspecified crimes?  Those people asked for reform and the implementation of the constitution which had been ratified in 1997, but has never been implemented? Some of these people are already dead; others are languishing incommunicado in jails handcuffed even when they eat and sleep. Those are people who spent their youth fighting for independence. Journalists were also purged at the same time, in September 2001, when the independent media was closed down permanently. Some of these journalists also died.

Eritrea has over 300 prisons full of normal, innocent Eritreans whose only crime is to want a decent life with enough to eat, some work, no slavery, no persecution and no more torture. 1000s of Eritreans try to leave the country every day. This, too, is illegal, and they are often shot dead as they try to escape; nevertheless, this is often still preferable to staying inside a country which, as it celebrates 20 years of so-called ‘dignity’ and so-called ‘independence’ has been brought to its knees by a megalomaniac leader whose only interest is monetary gain for the few at the expense of the many.

Now that you are aware, Your Excellency, of the true state of affairs in Eritrea – something, by the way, that can be confirmed by many documents and testaments, we urge you to use your beneficent influence to alter the course of our country’s fate.

Yours respectfully
E.Chyrum
Elizabeth Chyrum
Director


P.O.Box 36199, London, SW7 5WS, United Kingdom
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.hrc-eritrea.org