New York, August 2, 2002—During a recent fact-finding
mission to Eritrea, a presidential official told a delegation from the
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that eight independent journalists
are currently imprisoned and held incommunicado.
Although the official, presidential spokesperson Yermane Gebremesken,
cited eight journalists, CPJ puts the total number of journalists jailed
in Eritrea at 13.
The government acknowledgement comes more than 10 months after the authoritarian
regime of President Isaias Afeworki shut down the tiny nation's private
press and rounded up independent journalists in a sweeping crackdown on
dissent.
In a July 18 meeting in his office, the presidential spokesperson told
the CPJ delegates that "about eight" news professionals were being held
in detention facilities, whose whereabouts he refused to disclose.
According to CPJ sources, a total of 13 journalists
are currently held. Ten were arrested in September, 2001, and three were
detained in February. Until March 31, all 13 journalists were confined
in dingy cells at Police Station One in the capital, Asmara. At that time,
they began a hunger strike to protest their imprisonment. Security forces
then transferred nine of the hunger strikers to undisclosed detention
facilities, and their families have since been denied any contact with
them.
CPJ's sources have reported that one of the hunger strikers, Swedish national
Dawit Isaac, was sent to a hospital where he was treated for posttraumatic
stress, a result of alleged torture while in police custody.
Yermane, the presidential spokesperson, would not guarantee whether all
of the detained journalists were alive. Nor would he comment on their
condition, beyond stating that they were not being mistreated.
"We arrived in Asmara during a new wave of military roundups of young
men and women for national service, and based on what we witnessed, it
is hard to believe that the jailed journalists are being treated any more
decently than others," said Josh Friedman, a CPJ board member, who, along
with CPJ's Washington, D.C., representative Frank Smyth and CPJ Africa
program coordinator Yves Sorokobi, was part of the mission.
The delegation visited Eritrea from July 16 to July 21 and held meetings
with local and foreign officials, as well as with members of Asmara's
tiny foreign press corps.
At the July 18 meeting, Yermane defended the journalists' continued imprisonment
by citing national security concerns. He also accused the private press
of purchasing publication licenses with funds from foreign governments
hostile to Eritrea.
The presidential spokesperson claimed that government security agencies
had collected enough evidence to support the accusations but declined
to make any information available to the CPJ delegation. Yermane also
reiterated an earlier official statement that Parliament had created a
special commission to draft a new media policy and revise Eritrea's current
press law with the aim of curbing foreign funding of the press.
"There should be limits to what can be said about government officials,"
Yermane asserted, in defending the government's actions.
"At a time when Eritreans need all the information they can get to build
their young nation, it is unfortunate that the authorities remain determined
to control what can be said," said CPJ executive director Ann Cooper.
"We oppose any government attempts to set standards for the press, and
we call on President Afeworki to ensure that the jailed reporters are
released immediately."
The jailed reporters are:
Yosef Mohamed Ali, chief editor of
Tsigenay
Seyoum Tsehaye,
freelance editor and photographer and the former director of Eritrean
state television
Temesgen Gebreyesus,
reporter for Keste Debena
Mattewos Habteab,
editor of Meqaleh
Dawit Habtemichael,
assistant chief editor, Meqaleh
Medhanie Haile,
assistant chief editor, Keste Debena
Fessahaye Yohannes, editor-in-chief
of Setit
Said Abdulkadir, chief editor of Admas
Amanuel Asrat, chief editor of Zemen
Dawit Isaac, contributor to Setit
Hamid Mohammed Said, Eritrean state
television (ETV)
Saleh Aljezeeri,
Eritrean state radio
Saadia (full name unknown) a female
journalist with the Arabic-language service of ETV.
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