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UN investigation reports a litany of crimes committed in Eritrea since 1991, including enslavement, rape and murder.

The crimes committed since 1991 include imprisonment, enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killings, and rape and murder, said the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) on human rights.

The forced labour of military conscripts is also a major problem in the country, the UN said.

”We think that there are 300,000 to 400,000 people who have been enslaved,” chief UN investigator Mike Smith told journalists in Geneva.

The government also operates a shoot-to-kill policy to stop people fleeing the country, according to evidence collected by the UN inquiry.

About 5,000 Eritreans risk their lives each month to flee the nation where forcible army conscription can last decades.

”Very few Eritreans are ever released from their military service obligations,” Smith said.

One witness said that Air Force conscripts were made to work in a plantation that belonged to the Air Force chief. The conscripts were not paid and were sent to detention facilities if they refused to work.

These acts were perpetrated to terrify and control the civilian population, while crushing opposition, the Commission of Inquiry said.

”There is no genuine prospect of the Eritrean judicial system holding perpetrators to account in a fair and transparent manner,” Smith said.

The Commission of Inquiry recommended that the international community and the International Criminal Court get involved.

”Crimes against humanity have been committed in a widespread and systematic manner in Eritrean detention facilities, military training camps and other locations across the country over the past 25 years,” the UN commission said.

”Particular individuals, including officials at the highest levels of state, the ruling party – the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice – and commanding officers bear responsibility for crimes against humanity,” it said.

The 1991 split between Ethiopia and Eritrea followed a three-decade independence war, which saw Eritrean rebels battling far better-equipped Ethiopian troops backed first by Washington and then by the Soviet Union.

The country ranks below North Korea as the worst in the world for press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders.

With an annual per capita gross national income of $480, Eritrea is one of the world’s poorest nations, according to the World Bank.

8 Jun 2016 – Presentation of the second report by the Commission of Inquiry on human rights in Eritrea
Speaker: Mike Smith, Chairperson, Commission of Inquiry on human rights in Eritrea

ኣብ ኣህጉራዊ ገበናዊ ቤት-ፍርዲ ዘ-ሄግ መርማሪ ኮምሽን ውድብ ሕቡራት ሃገራት ኣብ ሰብኣዊ መሰላት ኤርትራ፣ ምልካዊ ስርዓት ኢሳይያስ ብዝፈጸሞ ኣንጻር ሰብኣውነት ‘ Crimes Against Humanity ‘ ብዘየማትእ ቀሪቡ ክፍረድ ከምዘለዎ ወሲኑ።

Eritreans have been looking forward to have a day called “Eritrean Veterans’ Day”.

PDF: EritreanVeteransFlyer_31May2016_English

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
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‘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.

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