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The diplomat Eritrean Sweden expelled last week put fear in their fellow citizens in the Nordic region. Espionage, threats and blackmail forced them into submission, claims a defector in a unique testimony.

Nobody has ever told from the inside of the Eritrean embassy in Stockholm. But now describe a defector horrors Tekle Menghistu who was expelled last week.

– To spy on the opposition was his main task. He was very good at it – he is a high-ranking security officials, said Fidel Sium who worked closely diplomat from 2010 to 2013.

Tekle Menghistu must have had a spy network to control and suck out all Eritreans.

– Many helped him because they were afraid. Otherwise could relatives in Eritrea could get in trouble.

Central to the embassy is to require exiled Eritreans tax, for example, when someone needs a passport to apply for Swedish citizenship.

– I saw people crying and beans to get rid of, but they were forced to pay 30-40-50 000, says Fidel Sium.

He himself was a co-organizer of an annual festival in Stockholm, where thousands of Eritreans from all over Scandinavia. The 5-6 million it grossed ended up in the pockets of Tekle Menghistu and some others at the embassy under Fidel Sium.

2012 demonstrated dissidents against a festival guest – presidential adviser Yemane Gebreab.

– Just next Yemane and his SAPO Guards had Tekle Menghistu and his associates pistols and a Kalashnikov! Fidel claim Sium.

If someone came in, he would be taken out and shot, the diplomat should have explained.

He also led the slander and intimidation against opposition. Enemy number one is the Swedish-Eritrean senator Arhe Hamednaca (S) according to Fidel Sium.

Full defection Arens history can not confirm, but that can be checked right. Many observers also believe in the story.

– It seems credible. The tax is required in the whole world and there are reports of threats and violence from several countries. Canada deported the Eritrean Consul on just the basics, says Eritrea expert Kjetil Tronvoll.

The embassy would not comment on the criticism.

A diplomat from the country of Eritrea in Africa are forced to leave Sweden. This is a way for Sweden to show their discontent with the government of Eritrea. But we do not know what the Swedish government is really unhappy with.

Diplomats are people who work for their governments in another country. And the person who worked at the now expelled Eritrean embassy office in Stockholm. But now he must therefore leave Sweden. It decided the Swedish Foreign Ministry, Foreign Ministry today.

So far we do not know why Sweden has expelled the Eritrean diplomat. It can be due to several things.

Dawit Isaak
The Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak has been locked up in prison in Eritrea since 2001 Sweden wants Eritrea to release him and let him go home to Sweden.

To pay
Many Swedish-Eritreans commits have complained about the Eritrean embassy. They feel that they are forced to pay money there in a special tax, otherwise they may not help with passport and other important papers from the embassy.

Espionage
There are Eritreans who have fled to Sweden who believe that staff at the Eritrean embassy spying on them.

Teisendorf – As a deserter from Eritrea, through war zones such as Sudan and the Mediterranean: A refugee describes his long journey to freedom after Teisendorf.

Eritrea – a country in which a person is considered to be a will-less piece of meat. From this country they want to get away and take inhuman exertions, the arbitrariness of the dictator Isaias Afewerki, who tolerates no opposition – he is since May 24, 1993 President and head of the transitional government – to escape. Samson Barnebas, 28 years old, is one of the young men of this country, who had to experience an escape, as they flicker across the television screens every day, on his own body.

Escape from inhumane conditions

Escape from the home that you love and you have to leave but will not be at the mercy of an inhuman dictatorship. Not hunger, war and destruction are driving, but the inhuman system. To the five percent of the population and unsecured indications for follow are probably even more now out of the country. The country cuts herself off from the outside. What little we know comes from refugees. Belonging to the ”wrong” religion and ”wrong” political view ends in jail and then usually with death.

After his school education – Samson Barnebas attended high school and speaks good English – he had to go to the military. This common practice in Eritrea is in absolute arbitrariness and the young men leaving while in military service, as the manager wants it. This may years, even decades to be. Eritrea is located in a perpetual border war with Ethiopia and needs these men. The military service of Samson had been going on from 2003 to 2011, when he decided to flee. The with him now in Teisendorf arrived young men independently have a similar history behind it.

Eritrea – the ”North Korea of Africa”

To get an idea of the conditions in this country: Eritrea is often referred to as the ”North Korea” Africa, where the political conditions make life almost unbearable. In May 2013 asked the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations – Sheila Keetharuth – in its report serious and persistent human rights violations, including arbitrary killings and arrests, forced disappearances, torture, and lack of expression, religion and assembly firmly. In the press freedom organization ”Reporters without Borders” established ranking the country is in 2013 the 179th and thus repeats the last place one.

To be taken up as a deserter means certain death in Eritrea. So it was for the men to come as quickly as possible out of the country. After a 16-hour march Samson Barnebas reached the border with Sudan. In Sudan, he spent a year hiding near the border with Libya. To be discovered in the Sudan, usually means a kidnapping to torture, to publish data from relatives in Eritrea and then to extort these relatives to raise money for the release.

In Libya, soldiers detained him for over a year. With $ 1,200 he purchased the freedom and reached for the price of another $ 3,300 on a not ”seaworthy” boat leaving the harbor but why could not leave. The money was lost. Again and again helped his father, who lives in Norway family financially. With another boat that he had to pay again, it went over the Mediterranean and the Italian Navy attacked him and another 310 refugees on her 15 hour long voyage across the Mediterranean on. Meanwhile, the flight devoured already $ 7,300.

Finally arrived in Teisendorf

The money always needed came with the help of so-called money dealers from Norway to Libya, a not exactly confidence-inspiring handling. Banking transactions, such as transfers to European standards, are not possible. After ten day stay in Italy we took the train to Munich and there were the young men and a Nigerian family with three small children, the allocation in the house on the Loose Road in Teisendorf.

TORONTO — The federal government has warned Eritrea that its only diplomatic outpost in Canada will be shut unless it ceases all involvement in a discredited taxation scheme that has been linked to threats, intimidation and harassment.

In a diplomatic note obtained by the National Post, Canadian foreign affairs officials put the Eritrean regime on notice that its Toronto consulate must stop soliciting and collecting a “diaspora tax” for the tiny African dictatorship.

Should consulate staff do anything more than refer callers to an Eritrean government website, Ottawa will close the diplomatic post, said the diplomatic note delivered Thursday in a significant blow to Eritrea and its supporters.

“If the department continues to receive allegations that the consulate continues to solicit the tax, including through provision of amounts owing, requesting notices of assessment, and/or using agents or any similar activities, Canada will withdraw its recognition of the Eritrean consular post in Toronto,” the note said.

Described by a Canadian official as a “final straw,” the warning came after the National Post reported that, a year after Foreign Minister John Baird expelled the Eritrean consul-general over the issue, consulate staff continued to play a key role in collecting the 2% income tax from Eritrean expatriates.

Under the scheme, even Eritreans who had fled the repressive dictatorship were told to send their Canada Revenue Agency assessment notices to the consulate, which then calculated how much they owed. Those who decline to pay are denied basic services and face possible arrest should they return to Eritrea, while their friends and families in Eritrea are threatened and harassed, according to the RCMP.

Text of Diplomatic Note

The department acknowledges receipt of the tax form used by the government of Eritrea to collect tax from its citizens in Canada. The department also notes that it continues to receive serious allegations that the Consulate of Eritrea in Toronto is violating its commitment to respect Canada’s conditions regarding the solicitation and collection of tax. Specifically, the department has received information that the consulate continues to request notices of assessment of Canadian tax returns from Eritrean-Canadian citizens, is involved in the calculation and negotiation of the amount of money owing to the Eritrean government, and further relies on agents in the community to collect funds and transfer them to Eritrea. All of these actions are considered as solicitation and collection of tax. Canada expects that the only action on the part of the consulate related to the 2% reconstruction and rehabilitation tax is to refer any inquiries about the tax to the government of Eritrea directly or to a government of Eritrea website. If the department continues to receive allegations that the consulate continues to solicit the tax, including through provision of amounts owing, requesting notices of assessment, and/or using agents or any similar activities, Canada will withdraw its recognition of the Eritrean consular post in Toronto. The above will be discussed in detail with the next career head of the consulate in Toronto upon her arrival.

The “diaspora tax” system has been condemned by the United Nations, which has asked member countries to end the practice. The UN has imposed strict sanctions on Eritrea over its clandestine backing of armed groups in the Horn of Africa, notably Al-Shabab, which killed two Canadians in Nairobi last year.

The consulate denies soliciting the tax, claiming it only provides “information” and that those complaining want to “destroy the Eritrean community.” But in phone calls secretly recorded by Eritrean-Canadians, consulate staff admitted they were still actively involved in the taxation program.

An affidavit signed by Wegahta Berhane Tesfamariam, a landed immigrant living in Edmonton, described how the consulate informed her she owed $1,200 in back taxes and that unless she paid her passport would not be renewed, meaning she would be unable to visit her husband in the United States.

The consulate instructed her to contact an agent in Edmonton named “Domenico,” who would arrange for her to ship the money to Eritrea. “He can connect you with other people who can take the money for you,” a consulate employee named Ketem said, according to the affidavit, which was sent to foreign affairs officials.

A Canadian living in Alberta who also recorded his calls said the consulate told him his wife and child would not be allowed to leave Eritrea until he paid up. A former political prisoner who fled the regime and now lives in Vancouver was told he could not have his university transcript unless he paid $6,000 in taxes.

The diplomatic note said the department “continues to receive serious allegations that the consulate of Eritrea in Toronto is violating its commitment to respect Canada’s conditions regarding the solicitation and collection of tax.

“Canada expects that the only action on the part of the consulate related to the 2% reconstruction and rehabilitation tax is to refer any inquiries about the tax to the government of Eritrea directly or to a government of Eritrea website.”

The senior consulate officer could not be reached for comment on Monday. The consulate has been without an accredited diplomat since the former consul-general’s expulsion last May. The consulate is currently staffed by locally engaged employees.

Every month, some 3,000 Eritreans flee the repressive  country, which human rights groups have called a “giant prison.”

By Canada National Post

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird says he has sent a message to the Eritrean consulate to stop collecting a ”diaspora tax” from Eritrean-Canadians here or he will order the African nation’s consulate closed.

In response to a question from a reporter in Toronto, Baird said the practice of requiring Eritrean-Canadians to pay a tax at the consulate is ”unacceptable.”

”We share the deep concern that Eritrean-Canadians, and others, have for the work that has gone on at the consulate. We’ve repeatedly sent out strong signals that is unacceptable, it’s wrong and will not be tolerated,” Baird said.

”I gave instructions to my deputy minister several days ago to very clearly and unequivocally deliver a strong message that this activity must cease and desist, and if it doesn’t we will close the consulate,” Baird said.

Baird said the messages were sent in ”recent days” but did not specify when a shutdown of the consulate might occur.

This is just the most recent action Baird has taken against Eritrean officials in Canada over the practice of requiring expatriates to pay what the UN has condemned as a worldwide ”diaspora tax” on its nationals, valued at two per cent of their income. Last year, Baird expelled consul general Semere Ghebremariam O. Micael.

Eritreans here have complained that if they don’t pay the tax, their
families back home will suffer consequences