Amnesty International Report 2005 - Eritrea

Covering events from January - December 2004

Hundreds of people were arrested for the peaceful expression of their opinions or religious beliefs. Political prisoners were held indefinitely without charge or trial, many incommunicado and in secret detention places. Thousands had been held since a major crackdown on dissent in 2001. Torture was reported, including of people fleeing or evading military conscription.

Background

The government and ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice made no move towards multi-party elections as required by the 1997 Constitution. No opposition activity or criticism was tolerated and no independent non-governmental organizations were allowed. A Special Court continued to convict defendants in secret trials without defence representation or the right of appeal.

The UN made an emergency appeal on behalf of some 50 per cent of the population facing food shortages as a result of drought and the 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia.

The government continued to support Ethiopian armed opposition groups fighting in Ethiopia, as well as Sudanese armed opposition groups. Sudan and Ethiopia supported the opposition Eritrean National Alliance (ENA), which included Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) and Islamist groups. It was unclear whether there was armed activity inside Eritrea by ENA groups.

Border tensions

The UN Security Council and others expressed fears that the continuing border dispute could result in a new war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. In November Ethiopia accepted in principle the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission's ruling that the border town of Badme was Eritrean territory according to colonial treaties, which it had previously rejected. However, agreement on a final settlement of the border issue by both sides was expected to take some time. The mandate of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, administering a buffer-zone along the border, was extended.

The Claims Commission, set up through the December 2000 Peace Agreement, judged in April and December that both sides were liable for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law regarding material destruction, rape, abductions, killings, ill-treatment, expulsions and deprivation of citizenship or properties of civilians during the 1998-2000 war.

Prisoners of conscience

Scores of people suspected of opposing the government or supporting armed opposition groups were detained in secret and held without charge or trial. They included forcibly returned asylum-seekers and former refugees now holding foreign citizenship who were detained after returning voluntarily to the country.

• Nothing was known of the whereabouts or condition of 11 former government leaders detained since September 2001. They included former Vice-President Mahmoud Ahmed Sheriffo, former Foreign Minister Haile Woldetensae and former Eritrean People's Liberation Front intelligence chief Petros Solomon. Dozens of others also remained in incommunicado detention, including Aster Yohannes, Petros Solomon's wife, who was detained on her return to Eritrea from the USA in December 2003. The few releases reported in 2004 included Abdulrahman Ahmed Yunis, aged 75, and Sunabera Mohamed Demena, aged 82, both seriously ill due to harsh prison conditions.

Journalists

Private media remained banned. Fifteen journalists from the private, international and state media were still held incommunicado at the end of the year, most detained in the September 2001 crackdown.

Long-term political prisoners

Thousands of government critics and opponents arrested during the first decade of independence after 1991 were believed to be still detained in secret military and security detention centres throughout the country. Some were feared to have been extrajudicially executed.

Military conscription

National service, compulsory for all men and women aged between 18 and 40, continued to be extended indefinitely, as it had been since the war with Ethiopia. The right to conscientious objection was not recognized by the authorities. There were frequent round-ups to catch evaders and deserters. Torture and indefinite arbitrary detention were used to punish conscripts accused of military offences.

• Paulos Iyassu, Isaac Moges and Negede Teklemariam, all members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, who oppose the bearing of arms, remained in incommunicado detention since 1994 in Sawa military training centre without charge or trial.

On 4 November, Eritrean security forces in Asmara indiscriminately arrested thousands of people suspected of evading military conscription. People were arrested at places of work, in the street, at roadblocks and at home. Prisoners were taken to Adi Abeto army prison near Asmara. That night, a prison wall was apparently pushed over by some prisoners, killing four guards. Soldiers opened fire and shot dead at least a dozen prisoners and wounded many more.

Religious persecution

A 2002 ban on religions other than the Eritrean Orthodox Church, the Catholic and Lutheran Churches and Islam remained in force. Police targeted minority Christian churches, broke up home-based worshipping, arrested and beat church members and tortured them in military detention centres to try to make them abandon their religion. Muslims suspected of links with Sudan-based armed Islamist groups were also targeted for secret detention.

The government claimed there was no religious persecution and in October the leaders of the four government-permitted faiths issued a statement condemning "subversive activities against the religious institutions of the country" by "alien and externally driven" Christian and Islamic groups.

• In February, 56 members of the Hallelujah Pentecostal Church in Asmara were arrested, including children. They were taken to Adi Abeto and Mai Serwa military prisons and tortured. Many were still held at the end of the year.

• Haile Naizgi, a former accountant for the non-governmental organization World Vision, and Dr Kiflu Gebremeskel, a former mathematics lecturer, both leaders of the Full Gospel Pentecostal Church, were arrested at their homes in Asmara in May. They were still held incommunicado at the end of the year.

• Dozens of Muslim teachers arrested in Keren and other towns in 1994 remained "disappeared".

Torture and ill-treatment

Torture continued to be used against many recent political prisoners and as a standard military punishment. Army deserters, conscription evaders and forcibly returned asylum-seekers were held incommunicado and tortured in military custody. They were beaten, tied hand and foot in painful positions and left in the sun for lengthy periods (the "helicopter" torture method) or were suspended from ropes from a tree or ceiling. Religious prisoners were among many detainees held in Sawa and other military camps, beaten and forced to crawl on sharp stones. Many prisoners were kept in overcrowded metal shipping containers in unventilated, hot and unhygienic conditions and denied adequate food and medical treatment. Conditions in military prisons around the country were extremely harsh.

Violence against women

Female genital mutilation was widely practised, despite government and UN education programmes. Domestic violence against women was reportedly common.

Refugees

Several hundred Eritreans fled to Sudan and other countries, most of them army deserters or those fleeing conscription. In July, some 110 people who had fled to Libya were forcibly returned to Eritrea. On arrival they were detained and placed in incommunicado detention in a secret prison. In August the Libyan authorities attempted to forcibly return a further 76 Eritrean asylum-seekers, including six children. However, some of them hijacked the plane carrying them and forced it to land in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where all the passengers, except the hijackers, were given refugee protection. The hijackers surrendered to the Sudanese authorities and were sentenced to four years' imprisonment on appeal; their refugee status had not been determined by the end of 2004.

• Some 232 Eritreans who were forcibly returned to Eritrea from Malta in 2002 continued to be detained incommunicado without charge or trial on the main Dahlak Island in the Red Sea or at other military detention centres.