| Names | Occupation |
| Dawit Isaak | Writer, journalist, and playwright |
| Amanuel Asrat | Journalist, poet, art critic, and song writer |
| Said Idris ‘Abu Are’ | Writer, journalist, and translator |
| Temesegen Ghebreyesuy | Journalist, comedian, actor |
| Methanie Haile | Journalist and lawyer |
| Fessehaye ‘Joshua’ Yohannes | Writer, journalist, and playwright |
| Yousif Mohammed Ali | Journalist |
| Seyoum Tsehaye | Journalist |
| Dawit Habtemichael | Journalist |
| Said Abdelkadir | Journalist |
| Sahle ‘Wedi-ltay’ Tsefezab | Journalist |
| Matheos Habteab | Journalist |
Background
Twenty years ago, in September 2001, the Eritrean authorities launched a massive crackdown on regime critics. As part of the crackdown, on 18 and 19 September, the security forces arrested and detained 11 out of 15 dissenting members (commonly known as the G-15) of the ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PDFJ), on charges of committing crimes against national security and sovereignty. The G-15 had earlier published an open letter in which they denounced the President’s abuse of power and presented his actions as ‘illegal and unconstitutional’.
On 18 September, the authorities also shut down all independent newspapers in the country, including the weeklies Meqaleh, Setit, Tsigenay, Zemen, Wintana and Admas which were closed down for publishing the G-15’s open letter and conducting media interviews on the issues raised in the letter. On 21 September twelve journalists, all associated with the banned independent media outlets, were rounded up by security forces and detained. Some of these journalists are also writers, poets, translators, playwrights, songwriters and art critics. The Eritrean authorities have held them and the G-15 members in incommunicado detention without access to family members, lawyers or independent doctors, and without trial, for two decades.
Over the years, there have been unverified reports that several of the detainees died in custody due to ill-treatment and neglect. The Eritrean authorities have ignored calls by human rights organizations and regional and international human rights mechanisms for justice for the detainees, with official denials of the clampdown in 2002. The authorities also claimed that the writers and journalists had merely been sent to carry out their national service, and that all those arrested in 2001 are alive without providing proofs to substantiate these claims.
Eritrea is a militarized authoritarian, single party state that has been consistently ranked as one of the worst countries for freedom of expression in the world, with independent media banned since 2001. Virtually all critical voices (journalists, writers, poets, playwrights, musicians, artists, dissenting politicians) are arbitrarily detained for indefinite periods, disappeared, forced to flee into exile or subjected to extrajudicial killings. Its democratic constitution, which guarantees the freedoms of speech and the press, was ratified in 1997 but not instituted. Eritrea has not held national elections since independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and the Transition National Assembly, which was established to act as the legislative body until national elections are held, has not met since 2002.
Take Action
PEN International considers the continued arbitrary and incommunicado detention of Eritrean journalists, writers, poets and government critics a violation of their human rights, including their right to freedom of expression, personal liberty, and life. The Eritrean authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Dawit Isaak; Amanuel Asrat; Said Idris ‘Abu Are’; Temesken Ghebreyesus; Methanie Haile; Fessehaye ‘Joshua’ Yohannes; Yousif Mohammed Ali; Seyoum Tsehaye; Dawit Habtemichael; Said Abdelkadir; Sahle ‘Wedi-ltay’ Tsefezab; and Matheos Habteab.
This is what you can do:
Advocacy
Write a letter or e-mail to the Eritrean authorities
- Write a letter or e-mail to the Eritrean authorities calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all journalists, writers, poets, and government critics detained without trial and held incommunicado since 2001, for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Here is a sample letter you can adapt
- Spread the word about the case of the detainees. Encourage others in your network to write letters and e-mails calling for their immediate and unconditional release
Please send letters and emails to:
President of Eritrea H.E. Isaias Afewerki:
- Postal address: Office of the President, P. O. Box 257 Asmara, Eritrea
- Fax : + 2911 125123
- E-mail : (through the Eritrean Permanent Mission to the United Nation) [email protected]
and through:
The Minister of Information Hon. Yemane Gebremeskel:
- Postal address: P.O. Box 242 Asmara, Eritrea
- Tel: +291 124 847
- Twitter: @hawelti
Social Media
Raise awareness about the Eritrean journalists, writers, poets, and government critics detained without trial and held incommunicado for 20 years using the sample messages below and the hashtags #FreeEritreanWriters #ImprisonedWriter:
- For twenty years, the Eritrean authorities have detained 12 journalists, writers, and poets incommunicado and without trial for their legitimate and peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression. Their safety and health situation remains unknown. Today, I join PEN International in calling for their immediate and unconditional release. Please help #FreeEritreanWriters by sharing this message #ImprisonedWriter [insert link]
- As PEN International commemorates the Day of the #ImprisonedWriter this week, I take action to #FreeEritreanWriters. Please write a letter or send an e-mail to the Eritrean authorities urging them to immediately and unconditionally free the writers. Support freedom of expression [insert link]
- Today I join @pen_int in calling on the Eritrean authorities to #FreeEritreanWriters imprisoned since September 2021 for their peaceful expression of dissenting views. Please support their case by sharing this message RT #ImprisonedWriter [insert link]
- As @pen_int commemorates the Day of the #ImprisonedWriter this week, I take action to #FreeEritreanWriters. Please write an appeal to the Eritrean authorities urging them to immediately and unconditionally free the writers. Support freedom of expression [insert link]
Please share this graphic on social media together with your messages.
Outreach
We also encourage you to:
- Write and publish articles and opinion pieces in your local and national press to highlight the case of arbitrarily detained Eritrean journalists, writers, poets, and government critics detained incommunicado and without trial since 2001
- Organize public events, e.g., press conferences, public forums, exhibitions, demonstrations to highlight their case
Please read and share The Scourge of War, a poem by imprisoned writer Amanuel Asrat
Something growled
Something boomed
Invading the calm
It echoed.
… Stuck
Where two brothers pass each other by
Where two brothers meet
Where two brothers join
In the piazza of life and death
In the gulf between calamity and culture
In the valley of anxiety and peace
Something boomed.
While the chia and seraw acacias spat at each other
Sorghum and millet cut each other down
With no one to collect them they feed on one another,
Until a single seed remains …
Brimming with tears
Being chopped—hacked
Sowed unto itself.
… planted
In earth yet to gush In that indiscernible thing
Stream of blood and water,
The seed …
Assailed by:
The freezing sun
Tempestuous nimbus cloud
Grayish lightning
Scalding rain …
Slipping through littered iron
Climbing onto the spirit of death
Shouldering its sterile life
Here, it has grasped at spring.
The seed …
Arrived on its own
From the blood and water yet to gush
Whose and to whom unascertained
Its tributaries unidentifiable
When it parted that spring
But in that spring …
When the seed looked to the right
He was a man, it was a beard
When it looked to the left
He was the earth, it was a seed
Bewildered… it fed on amazement
Tempted … but joining forces is not like it
Who should it stick with, where should it lurk
Who should it win over or be thrown at
But that spring’s dirtiness is its ugliness
It plowed with the beak of bullet
Spilled infinite lives Swept breath
Reaped death with death
Threshing it on the shoulders of our offspring
Finally bruised the fruit in distrust.
For the fruit …
When day and night became one
Anxiety and calm mingled
A world within a world
War within peace
Trust in betrayal’s backdoor
It sunk in bewilderment.
Is it not bewildering?
The scourge of this spring of war
After a mother’s tear for her children
The clan’s tear for its time
The earth’s tear for the earth
Flowed and flowed like a stream
Soon the earth became wet and muddy
The property, mired
Entrapping all … robbing them Then the shovel and the pick were produced
And the shroud and the stretcher sprang up
But …
How fast everything is used up and everyone scrambles for it
All of us crave and own it
The ugliness of this thing, war
When its spring arrives unwished-for
When its ravaging echoes knock at your door
It is then that war’s curse brews doom
But … You serve it willy-nilly
Unwillingly you keep it company
Still, you pray so hard for it to be silenced!
Amanuel Asrat (1999). Translated from Tigrinya by Tedros Abraham in collaboration with David Shook (2015)
Please keep us informed of your actions. Messages can be sent to Nduko o’Matigere, Africa Regional Programme Coordinator: [email protected].