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As one of the world’s most oppressive regimes, the Eritrean government has committed extensive crimes against humanity over the past 25 years, according to a report released June 8 by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea. President Isaias Afwerki, in power since Eritrea’s independence in 1991 following the 30-year war with Ethiopia, has led an increasingly repressive authoritarian regime. The U.N. commission found that enslavement, enforced disappearance, rape, murder, torture and religious persecution are systematically used to instill fear in Eritreans and maintain the regime’s power. These blatant violations of international law clearly constitute crimes against humanity as widespread, systematic attacks against the civilian population.

The Eritrean leadership’s brutality is particularly evident in its enslavement of up to 400,000 people, primarily through military conscription. Eritrea’s system of open-ended service forces conscripts to serve indefinitely, often for decades at a time. This deprivation of liberty amounts to modern-day slavery and allows for inhumane treatment, which Eritrea currently has no legal mechanisms to redress. In military camps, conscripts are frequently subjected to torture, sexual and gender-based violence, forced labor and domestic servitude. Recent developments could further exacerbate their situation. On June 21, Eritrea accused Ethiopia of contemplating full-scale war, strengthening the Eritrean regime’s justification for compulsory military service as a necessary response to perceived Ethiopian aggression.

Based on the testimony of 833 Eritreans in exile, the U.N. commission also found that mass detainment and enforced disappearance are wielded as tools of control over the population, often in an arbitrary manner that flouts international law. In 2015, thousands of Eritrean prisoners of conscience, including politicians, journalists and practitioners of unauthorized religions, continued to be imprisoned without charge or trial. In a testimony to the commission, a former detainee detailed the horror of incarceration in Eritrea: ”There is a saying in prison: If you scream, only the sea will hear you.” The report did not specify individuals responsible for ongoing crimes, but indicated that they operate within the military, National Security Office, ruling party and the highest echelons of government.

In light of these appalling human rights abuses, referring Eritrea to the International Criminal Court (ICC) is crucial given the country’s virtually nonexistent rule of law. The nation has no functioning judiciary, national assembly or civil society; opposition to the ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice Party is prohibited; and the Constitution of 1997, which established democratic institutions, has never been enforced. The vacuum created by this lack of a coherent legal foundation generates a climate of impunity for human rights abuses, one incapable of protecting citizens and holding perpetrators accountable for their actions.

Eritrea’s human rights record is not merely a domestic issue. The regime’s continued disrespect for human life poses an imminent threat to international peace and security through its role in the ongoing refugee crisis. The horrifying violence countless Eritreans face on a daily basis is a powerful force driving close to 5,000 citizens to flee the nation each month, contributing to a global humanitarian emergency. In 2015, Eritreans comprised the third-largest nationality after Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans undertaking the dangerous journey in search of asylum and safety. The weight of the ICC’s authority is urgently needed to ensure the protection of the Eritrean people and to stem this alarming flow of refugees.

As Eritrea is not a state party to the ICC, the tribunal can only exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed in Eritrea if the nation ratifies the Rome Statute, or if the U.N. Security Council refers the situation to the court. The Security Council must treat Eritrea’s serious human rights abuses as the atrocities they are by referring the country to the ICC. In doing so, it can ensure those responsible for these crimes are prosecuted to the fullest extent.

International mechanisms set in place by the Security Council and the ICC can play a pivotal role in ensuring the victims of the Eritrean government’s heinous abuses have their voices heard. No population should be forced to live in an atmosphere of fear while its oppressors are given broad latitude in their actions without facing consequences. Eritrea’s human rights abuses are still occurring today, and they must not slip through the cracks of global attention when they should be instead condemned and prosecuted for what they are: deliberate, systematic violations of fundamental humanity.

Grieboski is the chairman and CEO of Grieboski Global Strategies, founder and chairman of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, and founder and secretary-general of the Interparliamentary Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom.

TAGS:Eritrea, International Criminal Court, ICC

Hundreds of Eritrean refugees living in Ethiopia are demonstrating in the capital, Addis Ababa, in support of the UN’s recent human rights report into Eritrea, known as the Commission of Inquiry, that said there were systematic crimes against humanity.

”It is not law that rules Eritreans – but fear,” the report said, which details allegations of extrajudicial killings, sexual slavery and enforced labour.

The government described the report as ”politically motivated and groundless”.

The protesters are carrying banners calling for Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki to be taken to the International Criminal Court.

They have also presented a petition to the African Union asking it to push for the full implementation of the report.

Protests are also taking place in northern Ethiopia where thousands of people who fled Eritrea over the years are now living as refugees.

Earlier this week, pro-government Eritreans protested against the UN report in Geneva, where it was being discussed.

By: Emmanuel Igunza
BBC Africa, Addis Ababa

An anonymous whistleblower claims to have new proof of human rights abuses, galvanising opposition online

In a bid to upend years of secrecy in the country dubbed “Africa’s North Korea”, a new Facebook page is publishing documents claiming to show how the Eritrean government abuses its citizens.

In just two months, SACTISM – Classified Documents of the Dwindling PFDJ has garnered more than 16,000 followers on the social media site by alleging to have new information about human rights violations committed at the hands of president Isaias Afewerki’s ruling party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice.

The name “sactism” comes from a colloquial Arabic word that roughly translates as “nothing”, and was coined by the anonymous whistleblower behind the page, who goes by the name Samuel.

Samuel claims he is an Eritrean underground blogger who once held a “key post” in the government but who later fled the country. He says he is now sorting through the documents he collected while working in the capital, and says he is determined to expose the regime.

Over the last decade, the Eritrean government has been branded one of world’s worst human rights abusers, with Amnesty International estimating the country is holding at least 10,000 political prisoners in more than 360 secret prisons.

As a result, thousands of young men and women are fleeing the country. In 2014, 50,000 Eritreans sought asylum in Europe, with the UN estimating that around 5,000 nationals continue to escape each month.

With such a severe crackdown on civil liberties, and with little information able to enter to leave the country, Sactism has garnered a significant amount of attention from the Eritrean diaspora, despite the fact that the documents are impossible to verify.

’If we don’t give them a voice, no one will’: Eritrea’s forgotten journalists, still jailed after 14 years
Read more

‘Shaking the status quo’
In early February, posts appeared on Sactism claiming to show new information about the political prisoners and journalists who have been incarcerated for more than 14 years in Eritrea’s secret prisons.

Samuel also published accompanying notes he claims originate from 2001, which offer information about the security agents who arrested the journalists and their subsequent treatment in the notoriously secretive prison in Eiraeiro.

“The page is shaking the status quo,” says Daniel Mekonnen, a prominent Eritrean human rights lawyer living in Geneva. “Although it is difficult to ascertain the truthfulness of every information published on the page, some [readers] have already given their own independent opinion confirming the veracity – in whole or in part – of some of the information revealed,” he says.

The allegations have also been read out on popular Eritrean radio stations abroad, such as Radio Assenna, and have been extensively republished on diaspora websites.

Blocks

President of PEN Eritrea in exile, Ghirmai Negash, describes Sactism “as a new genre in Eritrean writing, the importance of which lies in its subversive power in the context of a nation under tyranny.”

But a few prominent figures have criticised the way in which Samuel is releasing the information. Awet Weldemichael, professor of African history at Queen’s University, says he is concerned about the ethics of the way in which the information is being released.

“I am not sure if it helps to family and friends of the disappeared to learn it through Facebook,” he says, adding that he also worries about the authenticity of the documents.

Facebook initially blocked the page, originally published exclusively in Tigrinya, after a petition emerged claiming that Sactism was “inciting hatred”. Samuel then began publishing certain posts in English, and provided a short blurb to clarify his intentions to readers.

Though he’s been approached by various outlets, he says he has chosen to stick to publishing on social media to allow him to “operate at an individual level” and to be “part of the democratisation of information sharing”, he has written.

“The regime was surviving mainly through the dread of information sharing,” he explained in a post in February. As a result, he has made it his mission to fight “misinformation and secrecy”, promising that “all the information shared on the page is most accurate.”

Click Here… The Guardian

Eritrea has received much attention in the midst of the refugee crisis, with traumatised citizens undertaking dangerous journeys to escape what has been described as a torturous life at the hands of a cruel regime. Human rights organisations have documented human rights abuses, arbitrary arrests and torture, as a result of which nearly 5 percent of the population has fled and 4,000 Eritreans continue to flee their country each month.

But not everyone is willing or able to seek an alternative to their homeland, and those who remain focus on the positives.

Eritrea is a curious mix – from its capital Asmara, where the smell of real macchiato pervades Harnet Avenue, to its incredible port city of Massawa by the Red Sea, one of the oldest in Africa.

The Italian colonial influences are visible throughout Asmara, in its architecture and the local culture, with its cafeterias and pizzerias. The landscape ranges from lush, cool highlands to hot and humid lowlands along the Red Sea coast.

But, it is the Eritrean people who make a lasting impression. Despite their colonial past and the harsh political climate, Eritreans remain a most hospitable and resilient people.

After a 30-year armed struggle, Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopian rule in 1991, and in May 1993, when Eritreans overwhelmingly voted for statehood in a referendum supervised by the United Nations, that independence was recognised internationally.

Isaias Afewerki has been the country’s only president since independence. His government has postponed any future elections, indefinitely.

Not much information slips out of Eritrea, as the government often jails independent journalists, and expelled its last international correspondent in 2007. These images from 2013 show a rare glimpse into the everyday lives of Eritreans.

More to Aljazeera

It was roughly twelve months after 31-year-old Gebre Berhane (not his real name) escaped Eritrea that the letter came through from the Home Office. He’d already lost 13 years of his life to forced military service and faced the threat of a regime which he says kidnapped his father turning on him. Berhane was sure his request for asylum would be accepted and his nightmare would come to an end.

”The Eritrean government were looking for me because they believed I was contacting foreigners,” he says, explaining the case he put to the British authorities. ”In my extra time I was supplying vegetables to a big company which made them suspicious. When we heard that they were looking for me, I fled. It’s been 15 years since my father was taken by the government. My mum said: ’I don’t want to lose you too, go away from this country’.”

But Berhane’s story wasn’t good enough for the Home Office, at least not at the first time of asking. Last summer, after months waiting for an interview, his asylum claim was rejected. The days he’d spent trapped in a migrant jail in Libya, the hours rocking on a packed boat to Sicily, and the month hopping from truck to truck in Calais – all in the hope of reaching England – appeared to have come to nothing. ”Something came into my mind,” he says, recalling how he felt after reading the rejection. ”If they are planning to take me back home I am planning to make suicide. Imagine you have come all the way and risked everything and they take you back to the Eritrean government – our enemy.”

Left with no other options, Berhane appealed the decision. For six months he waited in G4S-run asylum accommodation in Leeds until good news finally came: a judge had overruled the Home Office and Berhane was being offered asylum. For the first time in months he says he ”felt relaxed”. But with many of his Eritrean friends now going through the same process with the Home Office, an important question remains: why was a vulnerable refugee from the country dubbed ’Africa’s North Korea’ rejected in the first place?

In the past the British government was more than happy to recognise Eritreans – the largest group to claim asylum in the UK in 2015 – as people in need of protection. And for good reason. Since its independence 23 years ago, Eritrea has been ruled by the same president, Isaias Afwerki, in a repressive, one party state accused by Human Rights Watch of ”widespread and systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

But in March 2015 the UK’s position on the country suddenly changed after the Home Office published updated country guidance suggesting a marked improvement in Eritrea’s human rights situation. The acceptance rate for Eritrean refugees promptly plummeted from 84% in 2014 to 44% in 2015.

The source for this controversial change was a report published by the Danish Immigration Service back in November 2014 which claimed forced military service – the main reason people leave the country – was no longer indefinite, and that anybody fleeing without permission would be welcomed back so long as they signed a ”letter of apology” and paid a ”diaspora tax” on the money they had earned while abroad. Human rights groups disagreed, arguing that military service remains compulsory and indefinite, and that returned refugees are at serious risk of persecution. Even the report’s own authors were horrified by what the final version – based largely on anonymous diplomats – said. Two resigned and it was eventually discarded by the Danish government. ”The report was so simplified that it hurt,” one of the authors, Weise Olesen, said.

It is a view that British judges appear to share. Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that from March 2015 – after the changes were introduced – to September 2015, 1,006 out of 1,179 Eritreans rejected by the Home Office decided to appeal. Of the 118 cases in progress under the same time period, 106 were allowed. That’s an appeal success rate of 92%, way above average. Not everyone was so lucky. One hundred and seventy three decided not to lodge appeals, nine were rejected on appeal and 17 were removed back to Eritrea by force – but by and large judges appear to be finding against the government.

”Judges haven’t been able to understand why the Home Office has continued to use the Danish report because there are so many criticisms of it,” says Nathan Stevens, an immigration consultant for Duncan Lewis Solicitors, which has worked on ten cases since the changes came in last year. ”Clearly it doesn’t meet standards that would be required of a report to be accepted as a change in country condition.” Stevens explains that while judges are obliged to take the country guidance into account, existing case law from a 2011 tribunal ruling clearly states that Eritrea is not a safe country. That ruling, he adds, is ”a decision of the court itself”, meaning judges – by the law of precedent – are required to follow it. ”It’s an irrational situation really that judges are being asked to go against precedent.”

On top of the harm caused to the small number who have been sent back to a dictatorship, those left waiting for appeal decisions in the UK are under huge strain. Even with the prospect of a successful appeal, confusion and fear is rife. ”A lot of them attend churches and mosques and they speak to people in the Eritrean community that have been living here for a while,” Stephens says. ”They are completely confused about why, when in their view nothing at all has changed or improved in the country, they suddenly aren’t being granted.”

Another consequence according to Stephens is the amount of time and public money wasted on unnecessary legal procedures. ”It’s really clogged up the tribunal and has delayed everyone else getting to court,” he says. ”You would usually wait a month from lodging an appeal to your hearing but now it’s six. There’s a massive amount of cost on the public purse too given [refugees] could be working if they were granted status.

”They have to have to have an interpreter, which costs money. Judges are obviously paid and the legal aid fee will probably come to £1,000 for each case. It’s completely unnecessary given that everybody has been granted on appeal. It’s just money from the public purse being wasted.”

In January a review into the Home Office country guidance by the Independent Advisory Group on Country of Origin Information (IAGCOI), argued the new guidance was ”completely divorced from relevant objective evidence” and ”totally lacking credibility”. That was after another IAGCOI review published last year which also heavily criticised the Home Office. So why is the department ignoring its critics and persisting with something which appears to be largely failing?

In a statement a Home Office spokesperson said: ”The UK has a proud history of offering asylum to those who need it. All Country Information and Guidance is based on a careful and objective assessment using evidence from a range of sources including media outlets; local, national and international organisations; and information from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. While this guidance helps inform asylum decisions, every application is considered on its individual merits.

”The Home Office issued two responses to the IAGCI-commissioned review of our Eritrea country information and guidance: One questioning the impartiality and objectivity of the review and, as is standard, a more detailed response to the review itself in which we rejected large parts of his recommendations.”

Many disagree. Stuart Crosthwaite, a migrant rights campaigner with South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group, cites two reasons: ”It’s an attempt to stigmatise Eritrean refugees as ’bogus’,” he says. ”A precursor to increased trade deals with the Eritrean government, especially in mining and oil exploration. The former Tory leader Michael Howard seems to be involved in this process”. Stephens believes it acts as significant disincentive for Eritrean asylum seekers regardless of its actual efficacy. ”I think with the Home Office it’s almost a perception thing,” he says. ”They want it to seem like the UK isn’t a good place for Eritreans to try and claim asylum and they are hopeful the numbers will be reduced as a result.”

If this is the goal it is unlikely to succeed, Berhane believes. ”The reason most people are choosing to come to England is the language,” he says. ”I was learning back home in English so it will not take me a long time to be connected to the people.” Though many of his friends in Eritrea and the UK remain uncertain of their future, with his application finally granted Berhane hopes he can now join a college, use those language skills and put the past behind him.

By Philip Kleinfeld