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Eritrean government accused of failing to cooperate with UN inquiry as abuses including detention and enforced military service are highlighted

The Eritrean government has been linked with “ruthless repression” and systemic human rights violations, including carrying out widespread detention and forcing citizens into indefinite military service, according to the UN’s first inquiry into human rights in the secretive country.

Rights abuses perpetuated by Eritrea’s government, coupled with dismal economic prospects, are driving hundreds of Eritreans out of the country every day, according to an interim report by the UN’s commission of inquiry on human rights in Eritrea.

“Most Eritreans have no hope for their future,” said Mike Smith, chairman of the commission, which was formed in June last year. “National service, whether in a military unit or in a civil assignment, is the only thing that from the age of 17 they can expect to spend their life doing – paid between less than $1 and a maximum of $2 a day.”

Describing Eritrea’s culture of “pervasive state control”, Smith said a network of spies had been created that permeated the basic fabric of everyday life. “A man employed by national security might not know that his daughter is similarly employed,” he said, noting that extra-judicial executions, enforced disappearances and incommunicado detentions were commonplace.

“Is it surprising that, faced with such challenges, Eritreans leave their country in their hundreds every day?”

As of July last year, more than 320,000 Eritreans had fled the country, according to the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). After Syrians, Eritreans are the second most common nationality to arrive on Italian shores.

The UN commission’s interim report, released on Monday, is based on interviews with about 400 people, including government officials, in five different countries. It incorporates 140 written statements relating to human rights abuses in Eritrea.

The commission expressed concern that Eritrea’s government had “so far not cooperated” with its investigation and did not respond to repeated requests to visit the country to carry out research.

But the commission said that Eritrea was making some progress in improving human rights, noting that it had ratified the UN’s convention against torture and promised to reduce national service to 18 months. The commission will deliver its final report on Eritrea’s human rights situation in June.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the interim report showed “that it is essential for Eritrea to remain on the Human Rights Council’s agenda for the foreseeable future”. In the past, HRW has urged the Eritrean government to release political prisoners, let independent monitors into the country, allow independent media and end indefinite national service. HRW said there is no indication of progress on any of these points.

Eritrea has long been regarded as one of the world’s most secretive states, even drawing comparisons with North Korea. It was ranked at the bottom of the 180 countries assessed in Reporters Without Borders’ (RWB) 2015 press freedom index.

“Eritrea systematically violates freedom of expression and information. It is Africa’s biggest prison for journalists, with at least 16 currently detained – some of them held incommunicado for years,” said RWB.

Eritrea’s president, Isaias Afewerki, who has been in power since de facto independence from Ethiopia in 1991, has for decades used the threat of an outbreak of war with Ethiopia as a means of keeping his people under tight authoritarian rule.

In 1998, a brutal border war broke out between Eritrea and Ethiopia, killing an estimated 70,000 people on both sides. Despite agreeing to a new border under the 2000 Algiers agreement, which ended the conflict, Eritrea claims that Ethiopian forces continue to occupy positions in its territory.

The ensuing military stalemate between the two sides has led Eritrea to adopt a “no war, no peace” position with Ethiopia, according to the commission. “It is an expression abusively used by the Eritrean authorities to disregard international human rights law as if Eritrea was in a legal limbo,” Smith said.

Accusations that Eritrea was supporting the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab led the UN security council to impose an arms embargo on the country in 2009. The UN also levied asset freezes and travel bans on some officials.

Human rights activists are pushing for tighter sanctions against key figures in Eritrea’s government, saying they continue to commit crimes against humanity under the guise of protecting the country from Ethiopian aggression.

“If the UN inquiry concludes there is a situation of crimes against humanity in Eritrea, which I very much hope it will do, then we can say the international community is duty bound to respond with actions commensurate to that of crimes against humanity,” said Daniel Mekonnen of the Eritrean Law Society, who added that he is hoping Eritrean leaders would be referred to the International Criminal Court.

The Eritrean government responded to the UN’s inquiry by criticising its reporting methods. Tesfamicael Gerahtu, an Eritrean diplomat, said: “My delegation is dismayed at the protracted reliance on unreliable, unproven and sensational information and interactions. Preconceived ideas and conclusions on Eritrea have become rampant.”

Leslie Lefkow, HRW’s Africa director, said: “The [Eritrean] government’s refusal to cooperate with human rights investigators is symbolic of its broader rejection of essential human rights reforms. Until that stance changes it is impossible to have meaningful impact on the domestic crisis and the massive exodus of Eritreans provoked by the dire human rights situation.”

By: Theguardian

ID COI on Human Rights in Eritrea Overview of the U.N. Human Rights Council at the United Nations in March 2015

In Our World: Inside Eritrea with Yalda Hakim, Hakim explores how Eritrea has been described as one of the most secretive states in the world. Every year, thousands of people flee indefinite military service and arbitrary imprisonment.

But now, for the first time in around a decade, BBC World News has been allowed to film inside the country.

The authorities want to show off some positive news – they say child mortality is falling, maternal health is improving, and malaria has almost been wiped out. But alongside the gleaming hospitals on show, will Our World’s Hakim gets a glimpse of why so many young Eritreans will risk everything to leave the country?

Our World: Inside Eritrea with Yalda Hakim will air on Friday, 13 March at 22:30; Saturday, 14 March at 07:30 and 13:30; and Sunday, 15 March at 19:30 on BBC World News, channel 400 on DStv.

It started because Chris Cotter knew he had to be more than a traveler.

Growing up comfortably in Avondale, Cotter’s family owned a food distribution company, and the busy work life meant no vacations. So after graduation from Avon Grove High School, Cotter, who now lives in West Chester, was itching to see the world. “I’m sure it contributed to wanting to travel,” he said of his childhood.

Cotter’s explored at every opportunity: Asia, Europe, Central America, South America and the United States. He’s even climbed the 19,000-foot Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, about which he said with a laugh, “People aren’t meant to be that high.” When not on a world trek, Cotter owns and operates Tailor Made Media and TribeSound Records in West Chester, where he is a video and music producer.
But it was during his many travels that it became starkly clear to Cotter the disadvantages of others and that as a “First World” resident, “(I’m) super lucky to be born in this body.” And it was with this realization and humility that he began forming the idea of using his professional skills to make a documentary film, shining some light onto an untenable situation somewhere else in the world.

At first Cotter started doing research about human trafficking in Cambodia and Vietnam, but he was running into roadblocks. It was then a friend’s father – Mark Bowden, former journalist and author of books including “Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War” – suggested Cotter look into the plight of Eritrean refugees.

The State of Eritrea is a small country in the Horn of Africa that shares its border with Ethiopia in the south. Thousands of Eritreans have left their country and ended up in refugee camps in Ethiopia, on their way to hopefully receive asylum in Israel.

Cotter knew theirs was a story he wanted to tell. The refugees report overwhelming oppression committed in their country under the government of President Isaias Afwerki, Cotter said, with disappearances, torture and inhumane imprisonment not uncommon. Even if they do make it to Israel, they aren’t necessarily welcomed. Cotter wanted to follow the typical path from start to finish.

He also wanted very much to tell their story because he believed the story of their plight was underreported.

“It’s hard to find anyone who’s even heard of the country,” Cotter said, let alone the problems for the refugees.

“You find very little when you search for (information about the refugee camps),” said Joe Acchione, a director/producer at Tailor Made Media who worked on the film. Even Reporters Without Borders, the international nonprofit that champions freedoms of information and the press, didn’t have much posted on its website about the refugees, he said.

Cotter was especially interested in talking to those living in camps in the Afar region of northwest Ethiopia, which is among the hottest places on Earth.

“It was a pretty clear mission,” the filmmaker said.

So Cotter, cameraman Scott Miller and a lot of camera equipment, flew to Ethiopia. There they retained a guide, translator and driver. They had to be careful, because “If people are found talking to a journalist, they could be imprisoned or fined.”

In a film trailer, Cotter shows the audience people living in shacks in a hot, barren, dusty landscape, many of them children. In an interview clip from the film, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Anne C. Richard says Eritrea had “one of the most repressive governments on Earth.”

Richard says she had experience visiting many kinds of refugee camps all over the world, but she was “shocked at how many children there were and at about how bad the ratio was of adult supervision to children.”

In the same clip, a young boy tells Cotter, “There are so many children with so many problems. We need somebody to look after us.”

Cotter said, “We interviewed a kid 15, maybe 16, who had been in the refugee camp for three years. He walked there. His mom was disabled; his dad in the military … his brother was conscripted into the army. There just wasn’t enough money to go around.”

Another film clip has Cotter reporting that “children as young as 8” take deadly risks by making the trek, including being shot, tortured or “even having their organs harvested.”

They report on a man who hadn’t seen the sun for 2½ years, after being imprisoned underground.

During the course of the film, Cotter and his company have had critics, stating that the filmmakers are racist and the film is a Western campaign against the country. They have received emails, said Acchione, to which they have responded in thanks and invited the writer to respond. The filmmakers had heard nothing back at the time of the interview.

Editing 50 hours of film down to an hour has been difficult, but the biggest obstacle Cotter said he has faced is having enough money to complete the film. After using their own funds, and getting some help from family and friends,“it’s 80 percent done,” Cotter said. The filmmakers have turned to Kickstarter, an online donation site, which had allowed thousands to contribute toward its completion.

In the future, Cotter hopes to make more documentaries. “But the next time,” he said, smiling, “I’ll do one where they speak English.”

ብውልቀሰባት ኣብ ምስጢራዊ ባንክ ስዊዝዘላንድ ኣስታት 699.6 ሚልዮን ዶላር ብስም ኤርትራውያን ተቐሚጡ ኣሎ።

ብመሰረት እቲ ተቓሊዑ ዘሎ ጸብጻብ ምስጢር ዓማዊልን ዘዋህለልዎ ብዝሒ ገንዘበን ናይቲ ኣብ ስዊዘርላንድ ኣብ ዝርከብ HSBC ዝተባህለ ባንክ ዓለማዊ ኣገልግሎት ዝህብ ብስም ኤርትራውያን ብምስጢር ዝተቐመጠ መጠኑ ኣዝዩ ልዑል ዝኾነ ገንዘብ ኣብ መበል 53 ደረጃ ክስርዑ ዝኸኣሉ 699.6 ሚልዮን ዶላር ብምውህላል’ዩ።

እቶም ነዚ ገንዘብ ብሱቱር ዘቐመጡ ውልቀሰባት  699.6 ሚልዮን ዶላር ዘዋህለሉ 32 ዓማዊል ካብ ኤርትራ ምዃኖም ሰነድ ናይቲ ባንክ ከም ዘረጋገጾን፡  28 ሚእታዊት ኤርትራዊ መንነት ክህልዎም እንከሎ ዝተረፉ ክልተ ዜግነት ዘለዎም እዮም።  ገሊኦም ኣብ ውሽጢ ኤርትራ ገሊኦም ካብ ኤርትራ ወጻኢ ዝቕመጡ ኤርትራውያን ከምዝኾኑ ክፍለጥ ተኻኢሉ‘ሎ።

እዚ ተቓሊዑ ዘሎ ሰነደ ካብ 1981 ክሳብ 2006 ዓ. ም. ጥራይ  24 ናይ ባንክ ሕሳብ ዝኸፈቱ ብዝተፈላለየ ጨንፈራት  ናብ 39 ባንክሕሳብ ዘጠቓልል ምዃኑ ዝገልጽ ሓበሬታ ተዘርጊሑ ኣሎ።  ካብ 2006 ክሳብ እዚ እዋን’ዚ ገና ዘይወጸ ምስጢር ኣብቲ ናይቲ ባንክ ሰነድ HSBC ከም ዘሎ ዘየጠራጥር እዩ።