ኤርትራ ንሰብ ገንዘብ ! ! !

Asylum seekers: Israeli support for Eritrea prevents us from going home

‘We call on the Israeli government to stop all diplomatic and economic ties with Eritrea, including ending Israeli military presence on Eritrean islands, suspending the sharing of intelligence, and stopping all economic support to the dictatorship.’

Eritrean asylum seekers protest in front of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem (photo: Frezghi Sibhat)

More than 100 Eritrean asylum seekers traveled to Jerusalem by bus on Sunday to hold a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The protesters tolerated the hot weather in order to properly convey their message to the Israeli government.
The slogans of the demonstrations called on Israel to stop supporting the Eritrean dictatorship and halt all relations with it. They also called on the Israel government to work to release political prisoners held in Eritrean prisons.
Ahead of the demonstration, Eritrean asylum seekers worked together to draft a letter on behalf of the community. I read this letter at the protest, and it is printed here in full:
               

We, the Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel, are calling on the Israeli government to end all relations with the government of Eritrea. We can only go home to Eritrea when our country is safe and right now Israel’s support for the dictatorship is making this dream even farther from reality.
We call on the Israeli government to stop all diplomatic and economic ties with Eritrea, including ending Israeli military presence on the Eritrean islands of Dahlak and Fatma, suspending the sharing of intelligence, and stopping all economic support to the dictatorship.
The vast and grave human rights abuses carried out by the Eritrean regime as well as the Eritrean government’s support for terrorist organizations like the Al Qaeda affiliate Al Shabab have caused the United Nations, United States, European Union, Canada, and Australia to all sanction Eritrea. Israel is a powerful country on the international arena and we believe that Israel should join the rest of the world and call for democracy and human rights to be restored in Eritrea.
Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel want to go home. Right now Israel is part of the reason why we cannot. Stop your relations with Eritrea.
We envision an Eritrea that is peaceful and democratic. Such an Eritrea would be the friend of the world, including good friends with Israel. Having a longstanding relationship with a democratic Eritrea is more in Israel’s interests then supporting an Eritrean dictatorship whose stability in the region is in question.
This week marks the 11th anniversary of the arrest of the G-15, a group of government ministers and other prominent individuals who called for democratic elections in Eritrea. They have never stood trial or heard their charges, many are presumed dead following years of torture in underground chambers. With the thousands of political prisoners suffering in Eritrea in mind, we will use this opportunity to tell you about the dictatorship prison known as Eritrea.
The totalitarian regime in Eritrea uses unlimited conscription to the army as a way to keep control over the people. Men and women soldiers from ages of 18 to their mid-50s are subjected to forced labor; their army service includes farming officer’s agricultural fields and building construction projects not for the benefit of the state but rather to supplement the pockets of those close to the government. Eritreans who oppose their enslavement in the military are put on black lists, tortured, imprisoned in underground dungeons, and many are murdered. Individuals caught deserting their mandatory service are arrested, tortured, and may be killed.
As the Eritrean government perceives religious followings as threats to its power, the government significantly limits religious freedom. The government has banned all but four religious denominations and followers of banned religions systematically disappear and are imprisoned. Leaders from permitted religions whose followings become too big and thus threaten the government are also methodically tortured and imprisoned.
Similarly, Eritrea bans all independent media; anyone thought to be publishing alternative information is summarily tortured and imprisoned. Even those that work for the one state-run television channel are constantly under surveillance as the government seeks out potential dissidents. Eritrea goes as far as to limit freedom of assembly; anyone who wants to gather more than three people must have a government permit.
We would be very happy to meet with you and further discuss these issues and are looking forward to hearing from you soon to arrange a meeting.
Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Eritrean asylum seekers

Israelis arrested for Hamas Sinai kidnapping plot

4 Jewish Israelis, 1 east J'lem man arrested for transferring money to Hamas; part of plot to kidnap, extort Eritrean migrants.

 

Four Israelis were arrested for their involvement in an operation in Sinai that involved abducting African migrants and extorting up to $20,000 in ransom payments from their families in Israel, police revealed on Sunday.
Four Jews from Netanya and Kfar Yona, one of whom is a minor, were arrested for serving as contacts between the Eritrean migrants in Israel and an east Jerusalem man and suspected Hamas operative named Louai Nasser al- Din.

Din allegedly transferred the money to Hamas in Ramallah.
According to police, the month-long undercover investigation began as a straightforward investigation into money transferred by Din to Hamas. Upon further questioning, police discovered the money Din was allegedly transferring was the ransom money from at least one kidnapping.
Police are investigating whether the abductions are part of a larger operation.
On August 25 a man in Sinai calling himself Salam made contact with an Eritrean migrant living in Tel Aviv saying he had kidnapped the man’s nephew. Salam told the migrant he would have to pay $20,000 within two days or his relative would be killed.
When the migrant and further family members arrived at the scene of the exchange they refused to pay the ransom until they were able to speak to their nephew. They then agreed to hand over the money, but had only been able to come up with $13,000.
The money was handed over to two of the Jewish suspects, Yaakov Grad and Eliran Mahfoud Moshe, during a clandestine meeting at the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv.
The suspects then took the money to Din – who owns a cellphone store on Salah a-Din Street – on August 28. Din was supposed to transfer the money to Hamas in Ramallah.
Police arrested Din just after his meeting with the two men, with the ransom money still in his store. They arrested a third man, Victor Savioni, also of Netanya, who police believe was the main contact point for Salam, whose real name is Amad Abu Arar.
Din’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel, denied on Sunday that the money was ransom money and that it was destined for Ramallah. Police have investigated Din in the past for involvement in Hamas activities, but according to Tsemel he was released without charge.
Police believe the suspects were involved with six money transfers to Hamas of between NIS 10,000 and NIS 15,000, although only one of them appears to be involved in the kidnapping.
Police said Savioni met Hamas activists while working at a construction site in Netanya and became involved with money transfers between Israel and Gaza for Hamas.
During the investigation the men told police that they did not know the money was destined for Hamas.
On Sunday, indictments for Grad of Kfar Yonah and Moshe of Netanya on counts of kidnapping for the purposes of extortion and murder were filed in the Jerusalem District Court.
An indictment against Savioni of Netanya was filed in the Jerusalem Magistrates Court on counts of assisting the commission of a felony and illegal border infiltration Din was remanded for an additional five days on suspicion of membership in an illegal organization and kidnapping, at the Jerusalem Magistrates Court. The Jewish minor was released to house arrest.
Earlier this year, an indictment charged Yusuf el-Qarinawi – a resident of the Negev Beduin city of Rahat – with membership in a crime ring that abducted Sudanese and Eritrean refugees in Sinai. The gang in Sinai allegedly took hostages in order to extort tens of thousands of dollars in ransom from family members in Israel.
Investigators believe Qarinawi was a kingpin, connecting gang members in Gaza, Hebron, Tel Aviv and Sinai.
He was charged with concealment of an abducted person; blackmail with use of force; blackmail with threats; and conspiracy to commit a crime.
Also last year, the Hotline for Migrant Workers released a report that detailed the horrifying ordeals reportedly suffered by African migrants to Israel held captive by Beduin smugglers in Sinai.
The report, entitled “The Dead of the Wilderness,” depicts incidents of rape, torture, murder, extortion and near starvation that were described during interviews with 60 African migrants mainly from Eritrea, 24 of them women and 36 men, who reported suffering severe brutality on their way to Israel.

Eritrean Birds

Eritrean Refugee Population Has Untapped Potential

Before resettling in Twin Falls, Mulu Ghebrekidan worked as a physics and math teacher for six years in an Ethiopian refugee camp.
Instead, in Twin Falls he worked the eight-hour graveyard shift at Lamb Weston — a physically demanding job that took a lot of adjustment for him.
Ghebrekidan is one of hundreds of refugees who arrived in Twin Falls in the last decade. Though he went to college and has teaching experience, his degree and credentials aren’t valid in Idaho.
Ghebrekidan isn’t alone. Most refugees who come with higher education and established careers don’t have credentials required for putting their experience to work.
The result: Untapped potential for skilled employees in the Magic Valley.
Starting Over
The hundreds of refugees who arrived in TwinFalls have come with a wide range of education, said Michelle Pospichal, former match grant coordinator for the College of SouthernIdaho Refugee Center.
Some, like Ghebrekidan, have degrees, or have decades of career experience. Others had no access to primary education and are illiterate in their own languages.
While the educated are more likely to speak English, they’re still only qualified for low-paying jobs for the first several years they’re in the United States.
Ghebrekidan earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Asmara in Eritrea, right before fleeing the country to avoid obligatory military service in a conflict he didn’t support.
But universities in Eritrea don’t give graduates official copies of their diplomas unless they’ve completed five years of forced government service. The only proof Ghebrekidan has of his work in college is a “Temporary Certificate of Graduation,”a print-out composed with WordArt in Microsoft Word.
When he left Eritrea, he brought along his certificate, but that doesn’t count as proof of his degree.
He now works the night shift at SL Start, a program for children and adults with developmental disabilities, and takes classes at College of SouthernIdaho during the day. Eventually, he hopes to enter the college’s nursing program, then transfer to a medical school where he can study to become a general practitioner.
Catch 22
Even though Ghebrekidan’s diploma is useless in theUnited States, it prevents him from receiving certain types of federal financial aid available only to students who don’t have degrees.
So Ghebrekidan is stuck with a useless diploma, no proof of the credits he earned and an inability to receive PellGrants.
“It’s almost you’re better off if you had some college, but not a degree, because then you at least qualify for a Pell Grant,”said Edit Szanto, vice president of Student Services at College of SouthernIdaho.
Refugees didn’t voluntarily leave their countries to seek a new life, Pospichal pointed out. Though they’re grateful for the safety and new life the United States provides, some still struggle with homesickness and grief over the lives they left behind.
For those with higher educations, that frustration and identity crisis is often amplified.
No Short Cuts
Other states offer bridges between trained refugees and careers.
Illinois, California and New York participate in a program called Careers forNew Americans, which matches up highly skilled refugees, asylees and permanent residents with information on how to receive an occupational license.
The nonprofit program Welcome Back Initiative provides similar information and counseling services for immigrants and refugees who are trained in medical fields. Currently, the services aren’t available inIdaho.
Dawn Hall of theBureau of Occupational Licenses said there aren’t short-cuts for refugees.
“Immigrants from other counties would have to meet the same set of minimum standards as any other person applying for licensure,”she wrote in an email to theTimes-News. “Similar to a person who has been licensed in a profession in another state, the immigrant would have to show proof of the education and training they had in their native country.
“If that education and training doesn’t meet the minimum standards, they may need to have additional training, experience or an examination, based upon the requirements of the Board they are applying under,”she said.
Some careers transfer more easily than others. Math and physics are the same no matter what country you’re in.
But refugees who were lawyers in their home countries aren’t able to transfer any of their education to the United States, as each country’s legal code is different. For them, being uprooted usually means the end of their career.
A Familiar Story
Here, individual college advisors can help new arrivals navigate the maze of paperwork and training required to regain their careers.

Mulu Ghebrekidan, a refugee from Eritrea, holds a diploma he recieved from the University of Asmara for a biology degree he has from 2004.

Szanto works with prospective students at the College ofSouthernIdaho, including refugees who hope to enroll in credit courses.
Those students face a number of potential hurdles. Some, like Ghebrekidan, come without official documents to prove their background. Others come with no documents at all, or had their education interrupted by conflict or resettlement.
It’s a familiar story for Szanto.
“Ican completely relate when the new refugees come in,”she said. She and her husband, Zsigmond, came to the United States as refugees from Romania in the 1990s. Like most refugees, they started working manual labor.
“My whole family worked in the potato factory,”she said. Szanto’s mother, a dentist, couldn’t practice in the United States.
Her husband is now a veterinarian, and her mother became a dental assistant. But it took years, Szanto said.
A Shortage of Doctors
For those who do choose to pursue higher education, Twin Falls offers options through the college, though those courses don’t serve everyone.
Pospichal recalled one couple who arrived in TwinFalls years ago. Both were practicing physicians in Iraq. While the wife decided not to pursue a medical career in the United States, the husband wanted to continue his career.
That required tests and more medical courses, Pospichal said, which he couldn’t take in Idaho.The family eventually moved to California so he could complete his education — for the second time.
Their move from Idaho comes at a critical period, as the state has a shortage of doctors.
According to a 2011 study by the Association of American Medical Colleges, Idaho ranks second to last in the number of doctors per capita. In August, State Impact Idaho reported that there are only 2,873 physicians in the state.
Had the Iraqi physician couple stayed here, that number may have gone up.
“Who knows? They may come back in the future, they may not,”Pospichal said.
Ghebrekidan hopes to someday return to Eritrea — after he receives his medical license, and, more importantly, after the violence dies down. Eritrea has a critical shortage of doctors, he said, and he’d like to help.
Does he think the region will stabilize soon?
“No, Idon’t,”he answers softly.
If he can’t return to his country, he wants to set up a practice in Twin Falls, giving back to the community that has given him shelter.
“Ilike Idaho,”he said. “It’s so peaceful.”

Sweden vows to push for Dawit Isaak's release

Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has said that the government is working to free the Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak, who was imprisoned without trial in Eritrea 11 years ago today.

 Following the release of Swedish journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye from an Ethiopian jail earlier this month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Utrikesdepartementet) said it is prioritizing Isaak's case.

However, the Ministry said it cannot reveal details of its diplomatic efforts.

Carl Bildt said that Persson's and Schibbye's case was one of the toughest that the government has handled. The case of Dawit Isaak is even harder, he said, adding that it requires "perseverance and diplomacy on many levels."

Isaak's case is also a priority within the EU, where several statements have been made calling for his release.

Isaak, a married father of three, came to Sweden from Eritrea in 1978 as a refugee. He worked as a cleaner to support himself and gained Swedish citizenship in 1992.

He retained his Eritrean citizenship and returned to his home country at the end of the civil war there, joining Eritrea's first independent publication, Setit.

After writing articles that were critical of the Eritrean regime, Isaak was arrested and imprisoned without access to a lawyer and without a trial.

Isaak's brother, Esayas Isaak, told Sveriges Radio (SR) that Dawit Isaak had returned to Eritrea to work for democracy, knowing that the risks were high.

"Dawit is constantly in our minds, day and night," he said. "We wonder how he is doing and when he will get out. The uncertainty is terribly difficult."

Johan Persson, Martin Schibbye and Esayas Isaak will join a manifestation for imprisoned journalists on Thursday 27th of September. It will take place at the Gothenburg Book Fair and is organized by the Swedish Union of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders.

There are an estimated 150 journalists imprisoned around the world today.

Yemen, Eritrea discuss fishermen security conditions

Yemen and Eritrea discussed here on Saturday the organization and security conditions of fishermen and the possible means to address them.

Interior Minister Abdul-Qader Qahtan reviewed with Eritrean ambassador to Yemen Musa Yasin situations of the Yemeni and Eritrean fishermen and the traditional fishing.

They also discussed the security coordination between Yemen and Eritrea as well as the conditions of the Eritrean community in the country.

The minister reviewed burdens and difficulties the government suffered from due to the illegal immigration from the Horn of Africa to the Yemeni coasts, expressing Ministry' willingness to provide more facilities for the Eritrean community and to make the arrangements to expel the illegal immigrant Eritrean to their country.

The Eritrean ambassador valued the Interior Ministry's facilities to the Eritrean community and illegal immigrants as well, voicing his government's readiness to work to strengthen the bilateral relations, especially with regard to the communities' affairs and traditional fishing regulation in the Red Sea.

Ottawa forces Eritrea to nix ‘2% extortion tax’ on citizens in Canada

The government of Eritrea has agreed to stop collecting a controversial “diaspora tax” at its consulate in Toronto after the Department of Foreign Affairs threatened to send home the repressive African regime’s only diplomat in Canada.

“I don’t think the Canadian government realizes how crooked the Eritrean regime is,” said Aaron Berhane, who fled Eritrea after the state shut down his newspaper in 2001. “So the only way to stop the 2% extortion tax is by shutting up the Eritrean consulate for good.”

The consulate had been soliciting a 2% income tax and mandatory “donations” for its military from Eritreans living in Canada. The RCMP and United Nations have reported that those who refused to pay were subjected to threats, intimidation and coercion.

But last week, Foreign Affairs officials sent off a strongly worded diplomatic note making it clear Canada would not renew the accreditation of Consul Semere Ghebremariam O. Micael unless Eritrea agreed in writing to stop the scheme.
“Canada will consider the embassy’s request for renewal of his accreditation once it has received written confirmation that Eritrea has complied in full with the department’s expectations … and therefore the consulate has effectively ceased to collect the 2% ‘recovery and rehabilitation’ tax and the donation for national defence,” read the note, a copy of which the National Post obtained.

 The only way for Canada to protect its citizens and its national interests … is to expel the diplomat Mr. Semere Ghebremariam and close the consulate in Toronto

“If Mr. O. Micael continues to carry out tax solicitation and tax collection activities in spite of Canada’s express disapproval and view that such activities are incompatible with the normal performance of consular functions, it will expect a notification from the Ministry stating that such person has been recalled from Canada.”
Mr. O. Micael’s diplomatic accreditation was set to expire on Thursday. On Tuesday, the Eritrean Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded in a “note verbale” that it had “complied in full” with Canada’s demands, and that the head of the Toronto consulate “has been accordingly instructed.”
The letter is a reversal for Eritrea, which had previously defended its collection of diaspora taxes. With no measurable domestic economy, the country is largely dependent on Eritreans living abroad. But an Eritrean-Canadian journalist said he suspects the government will still find ways to fundraise in Canada.
“I don’t think the Canadian government realizes how crooked the Eritrea regime is,” said Aaron Berhane, who fled Eritrea after the state shut down his newspaper in 2001. “So the only way to stop the 2% extortion tax is by shutting up the Eritrean consulate for good.”
Ghezae Hagos, spokesman for the Eritrean-Canadians Human Rights Group of Manitoba, also doubted Eritrea would change its behaviour. He said as long as the consulate remained in business it would squeeze Eritreans in Canada.
“Therefore, the only way for Canada to protect its citizens and its national interests … is to expel the diplomat Mr. Semere Ghebremariam and close the consulate in Toronto,” said Mr. Hagos, also a journalist who fled Eritrea. He now lives in Winnipeg.

I don’t think the Canadian government realizes how crooked the Eritrean regime is

A one-party state of six million, Eritrea is one of the world’s most authoritarian and least developed countries. Nonetheless, it has managed to arm, train and finance armed groups throughout the region, including the al-Qaeda-affiliate Al-Shabab. As a result, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Eritrea in 2009. Canada took action in 2010, making it illegal to finance the Eritrean military.
But the National Post revealed last November the Toronto consulate was collecting taxes for military purposes. At the time, Eritrean-Canadians complained they had been pressured into paying levies to the consulate. They showed forms on consulate letterhead that indicated some of the money was designated for “national defence.”
A UN team that monitors compliance with the arms embargo subsequently sent investigators to Canada who confirmed the Toronto consulate was collecting taxes for military purposes and that refusal to pay resulted in threats and harassment.
The Canadian government warned Eritrean in January that such conduct was a violation of diplomatic protocols and “could be criminal.” Ottawa repeated its concerns in a July 27 letter, after the UN Monitoring Group released its report documenting the activities of the Toronto consulate.
Eritrea responded with a letter that said the UN investigators were biased and politically motivated, the allegations of extortion were a “malicious lie” and the diaspora taxes were collected to help the country rebuild after a long war with Ethiopia and protect the nation from “imminent military threats.”

Don't miss , Must watch !!!!!!!!!!!!

‘A Stand in the Sinai’: A CNN Freedom Project Documentary

• Follow-up to CNN’s award-winning documentary ‘Death in the Desert’ which uncovered the shocking trade of organ trafficking in the Sinai Desert
• Progress discovered in Sinai Peninsula since last year’s original
  

TX: Friday 21 September at 2130 BST

African refugees, mostly from Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, face a dangerous journey crossing Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as they seek a better life in Israel.
As reported in last year’s award-winning CNN Freedom Project documentary ‘Death in the Desert’, the reality that awaits these migrants is often slavery, rape, imprisonment and torture.
In ‘Death in the Desert’, CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen uncovered evidence that many of these refugees trying to reach Israel had fallen into the hands of human traffickers in the Sinai. These traffickers then tortured the refugees, and in some cases harvested their organs for sale on the black market, leaving many of their victims to die.
In 2012, in ‘A Stand in the Sinai: A CNN Freedom Project Documentary’, Pleitgen returns to the Sinai and finds a different reality now awaits the constant flow of African refugees. He speaks to Bedouin tribal leaders who say they are now working to battle human trafficking in the region, offering medical support and safe havens for these refugees.
Bedouin Sheikh Mohammed Abu Billal tells Pleitgen these refugees usually come to him with “signs of torture and rape, dressed in rags and starved…methods of oppression to exploit them for money. The burden is heavy on me, but it is a responsibility called upon us by Islam…that is why I spend my money to harbour them and bring happiness to their hearts at any cost,” says Sheikh Mohammed.
“When the CNN Freedom Project first discovered the atrocities taking place in the Sinai, it was not enough to do a standalone report,” says Tony Maddox, Executive vice president and managing director of CNN International. “Fred’s continued commitment to this story speaks to the Freedom Project’s core mission: that is to uncover stories of modern-day slavery, bring them to light, raise awareness and hopefully contribute to effective change.”
Earlier this year, the U.S.-based Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. recognised ‘Death in the Desert’ with the prestigious Tom Renner Award for its investigative coverage of organised crime or other criminal acts, citing the CNN team’s “great personal risk in crossing the dangerous badlands of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to expose a network of human trafficking and organ sales.”
About The CNN Freedom Project
In 2011, CNN Worldwide launched ‘The CNN Freedom Project: Ending Modern-Day Slavery,’ a multi-platform initiative aimed at exposing the horrors of modern-day slavery, highlighting the growing efforts to stop the trade and exploitation of human beings and amplifying the voices of the victims. From debt bondage in India to sex trafficking rings in Southern California, the CNN Freedom Project has generated more than 250 stories of modern-day slavery. Many notable figures have partnered with the Freedom Project since its launch including Anil Kapoor, Demi Moore, COMMON, Mira Sorvino and Emmanuel Jal.
CNN.com’s Freedom Project blog on www.cnn.com/freedom serves as the platform where users can participate in the global discussion and debate around modern-day slavery. The CNN Freedom Project is on Twitter – @CNNFreedom – and Facebook at www.facebook.com/CNNFreedom. Through these channels, users can connect directly with CNN about this cause, learn more about the organisations standing on the frontlines and see how they are affecting change.

Full air times for ‘A Stand in the Sinai’
Friday 21 September at 16:30 and 21:30 BST
Saturday 22 September at 14:00 and 21:30 BST
Sunday 23 September at 10:30 BST
Monday 24 September at 04:30 BST
For more information, please contact:
Joel Brown
Senior Press Officer
CNN Europe, Middle East & Africa
+ 44 20 7693 0967

Forgotten: The stolen people of the Sinai

http://article.wn.com/view/2012/01/20/Forgotten_The_stolen_people_of_the_Sinai/

Libya: Migrants in Libya - 'They Don't Treat Us Like Humans'

"They [Libyans] don't treat us like humans. For them, we are animals or slaves", 23-year-old Nigerian woman detained in Khoms detention centre for "irregular migrants".
On the evening of 12 September, a dispute between Eritrean and Nigerian detainees at the Khoms detention centre for "irregular migrants" had escalated into violence. During the chaos a group of Somalis chose their moment to escape.
The nine guards on duty were overwhelmed and they called in reinforcements.
According to detainees, some 10 vehicles with mounted machine guns arrived around 9pm and then men in military uniforms forced all Eritrean detainees into the courtyard for a beating.
A 29-year-old man from the Eritrean capital Asmara, who has spent six months in various detention centres across Libya, told Amnesty International that one man in military uniform hit him on the head with a metal bar and deliberately stepped on his hand with his military boots.
Other Eritreans said they were forced to lie down on the ground and were hit with rifle-butts or metal wires.
The severest beatings were reserved for the recaptured Somali escapees.
Mohamed Abdallah Mohamed, 19, still had visible injuries on his left shoulder, legs and face when I saw him on 14 September after I arrived at the centre having heard reports of shootings.
The Somali said that he was kicked, dragged on the ground, punched in the eye and beaten with the backs of rifles and sticks, after being caught by some seven people.
He was eventually taken to the hospital by detention centre guards, but complained of inadequate health care, continuing severe pain and an inability to see properly from his left eye.
Sixteen-year-old Somali Khadar Mohamed Ali was also recaptured, stepped on, and beaten with sticks and rifle-butts by men in military dress.
Following the escape attempt, a third Somali, Khadar Warsame, 21, ended up at the Intensive Care Unit of Khoms Hospital. He is receiving treatment for a head injury.
In the hospital, the reason for his injury is marked as a "fall", but an impartial, independent and full investigation needs to be carried out into the violence that engulfed the Khoms detention centre on 12 September to establish the full truth.
Those reasonably suspected of committing acts of torture or other ill-treatment against detainees should be investigated and, where there is sufficient evidence, brought to justice. While their cases are being investigated, they should be suspended from duties where they can carry out similar abuses.
During a previous visit to Khoms, detainees - mainly from Sub-Saharan African countries like Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan - recounted their long list of grievances: overcrowding, inadequate nutrition, no regular access to healthcare, lack of recreational activities and outdoor time, occasional beatings, racism, insults and poor hygiene.
Their top concern remained that they were detained indefinitely and did not know what fate awaited them.
Detention centre guards and administrators also expressed concern about the lack of resources to meet the needs of the some 370 detainees including about 30 women.
They complained about delays in repatriating migrants and the frequent escape attempts.
The detention facility is managed by the Department of Combating Irregular Migration under the Ministry of Interior, but police officers and guards-on-duty rely on local armed groups nominally part of the Libyan army to contain riots and recapture escapees.
Since the toppling of the al-Gaddafi government last year, armed militias have filled the security vacuum left by the collapsed state and assumed a number of law enforcement functions.
The central government has shown itself unable - and at times unwilling - to rein them in. In some instances, the government continues to rely on armed militias to maintain law and order, turning a blind eye to their excesses. Armed militias still detain suspects outside the framework of the law and torture or otherwise abuse them.
This security vacuum, the proliferation of weapons and a judicial system in near paralysis leaves foreign nationals in Libya particularly vulnerable to abuse.
They have nowhere to turn to seek justice and redress. Their situation is unlikely to improve until the Libyan authorities take a number of steps including the ratification of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the introduction of a functioning asylum system and reform of legislation regulating the entry and stay of foreign nationals in Libya.
The Libyan authorities also need to put an end to the violence and other abuses perpetrated against foreign nationals - whether by law enforcement agencies, militias or regular Libyan nationals - and take serious measures to address the prevailing racist and xenophobic attitudes in Libya.
For now, foreign nationals particularly those in an irregular situation remain at the mercy of any Libyan who crosses their path.
If they are lucky, they secure paid work.
Those less fortunate can find themselves forced to work for free, arrested or handed over to a militia, beaten and detained indefinitely in appalling conditions.
An Egyptian national who has lived in Libya for years told Amnesty International about his detention and torture after an argument with his Libyan employer over payment.
He was arrested at his Tripoli home in the middle of the night by three armed men. At their militia's base, he said he was tied, suspended from a metal bar, and beaten with cables, water pipes and wires all over his body including on the soles of his feet.
He was later handed over to a detention facility for "irregular migrants". He is hoping that a Libyan acquaintance will come to "sponsor" him and secure his release.
Otherwise, he - like thousands of others - risks indefinite detention and, ultimately, deportation without recourse to appeal.
        #  http://allafrica.com

EU Concerned Over Continued Rights Violations In Eritrea

The European Union on Tuesday voiced concerns over the Eritrean government's continued violation of its human rights obligations under both domestic and international law, highlighting the cases of political prisoners and journalists being held in the country without trial for years.
In a statement issued Tuesday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton expressed the European bloc's deep concern over the continued detention without trial of a group of eleven prominent parliament members from the People's Front for Democracy and Justice as well as ten independent journalists, including the Eritrean-Swedish citizen Dawit Isaak, since 2001.
"Despite repeated appeals by the international community, including by the UN Human Rights Council and the European Union, these people have been detained for the last eleven years without any contact with the outside world, and with all rights suspended," the statement said.
Noting that they have been reports about the arrests and detention without trial of several other journalists in the African nation, Ashton said the European Union remains particularly concerned about the reported deaths of some of the political prisoners and the deterioration of the medical situation of others.
Ashton reminded the Eritrean government that continued lack of information on the whereabouts and the access to health care of the detainees were in "clear violation of several human rights obligations, such as the prohibition of arbitrary detention and the right of anyone deprived of his or her liberty to be treated with human dignity."

The EU statement noted these are rights enshrined in the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which has been ratified by Eritrea.
"The European Union urges the Government of the State of Eritrea to release these prisoners unconditionally, along with other persons detained for their political views. The European Union requests the Government of the State of Eritrea to make public all information on the whereabouts of these prisoners and to allow them access to their families and lawyers not least on humanitarian grounds," the statement added.
by RTT Staff Writer
           #  http://www.rttnews.com

Africa : the other side of the coin A comparison of Africa’s structured

By Udo W. Froese

ERITREA is a small African country to the north of its occupier, Ethiopia.
The people of Eritrea say, “Under the Italians (referring to the fascist Italian occupation before and during WW2), you could eat, but you could not speak.
“Under the British (describing the British colonial takeover immediately after the Italians had lost their colonies), you could speak, but not eat. Under the Ethiopians (when Emperor Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judah, from Ethiopia occupied its neighbour with 3 000 troops), you can neither speak, nor eat.”
To date, Eritrea remains under UN/US sanctions.
Namibia has a similar history. First, the Germans conquered what it then called, German South West Africa. Germany lost its colonies in 1915 during WW1 to Britain, which then indirectly governed Namibia through the Union of South Africa, later, the Republic of South Africa. The indigenous African Namibians could not eat, could not speak and were killed, if they did.
Today, Namibia is a souvereign, independent country with a democratically elected government. After World War II, the opportunity presented itself – British-occupied Eritrea had become geo-strategically important to Washington DC.
Its neighbour, Ethiopia, too had wakened the interest of the Western Superpower. It was decided then, that the Horn of Africa had become of geo-strategic interest, as Washington was convinced that it was important to the East. This exposed the Horn of Africa to decades of superpower interference.
Namibia, Angola and South Africa too became pawns in that exercise of that so-called “Cold War”. Under the cloak of the “Cold War”, colonial-apartheid South Africa developed its vicious racial laws and judiciary as well as its formidable armed forces. Its security cluster enforced colonial-apartheid. A new economic development of “disinvestment” was enforced. Cartels were formed, and the economy became exclusive to the majority of the population.
Colonial-apartheid blossomed and its architects became the super-rich. In return, they transferred every Cent to the City of London and also to Tel Aviv, Antwerpen, New York and Perth. They formed an exclusive nucleus of oligarchs, funding research and development in order to improve their grip on the national and regional economy, as they were and remain interdependent, but owned by the same owners through cross-shareholding.
A new breed of well-connected indigenous black South Africans and Namibians were networked into the sophisticated political-socio-economic strategy of structured poverty. They had to sing for their lunch and hum for their supper, allowing themselves to be used for a few Rand more to function as the new gatekeepers for the oligarchs.
A new brand of ‘neo-liberal’ opportunism, masquerading as ‘democracy’ was accepted to protect an over-compromised political elite and the ‘architects of apartheid’.
Ethiopia grew to become a useful geo-strategic tool for the new superpower, the United States of America. Author and journalist, Michela Wrong, writes in her book on Eritrea’s situation and the Horn of Africa, “I didn’t do it for you – How the World used and abused a small African Nation”, “(Ethiopia’s Emperor) Haile Selassie had succeeded in establishing the principle of Ethiopia’s usefulness.”
Wrong explains, “Under the 1953 base rights agreement, in which Washington was granted near-souvereign rights over the various ‘tracts’, the US agreed to build up Ethiopia’s army (which has since become a major force in the Horn of Africa), providing training and equipment for three divisions of 6 000 men – a deal worth US$5million (then). But this, in the Emperor’s eyes, only marked the beginning. He was aiming for an army of 40 000 – a force, American military experts judged, totally out of proportion for a country facing at this stage of its history no significant external challenges.”
The US’s point of view made sense, but Haile Selassie soldiered on regardless. Michela Wrong comments on the Ethiopian Emperor’s astuteness, “Having seen off both, Mussolini and Churchill, Haile Selassie knew that persistence could be the politician’s most formidable weapon.”
Since then, Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, became the headquarters of the African Union (AU). It has also become an effective joint US-Ethiopian military base from which the Horn of Africa is kept in check. Over-compromised and ruthless political leaders made this possible.
But, the nation of Ethiopia remains terribly poor. One of its industries, coffee, provides hunger for its producers. But the international coffee cartel buys Ethiopian coffee for a song, while its café society enjoys a high-quality cup at globally agreed high prices.
 Addis Ababa was well rewarded, while its poor little neighbour, Asmara (capital of Eritrea), remains under its control.
Windhoek and its powerful southern neighbour, Pretoria, have a souvereign democracy and peace and stability in common. However, they also share the same oligarchs and their hostile economy.
Those are bad experiences for Africa and should not be intellectualised. They are the evil realities, which should be worked out of this continent.
• Udo Froese is an independent political and socio-economic analyst and columnist, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

          # http://www.newera.com

Eritrean newspaper man in Israel tells it like it is

Earlier this month, 21 refugees from Eritrea made international headlines when stranded at the Israeli-Egyptian border. Last month, three migrants from the east African country were stabbed at a Tel Aviv internet café. Critics say the Israeli government blacklists these refugees as infiltrators, even considering them an existential threat. Our correspondent reports on one individual who, despite the discord around him, focuses on making existence easier for his fellow Eritreans in Israel.


Kebedom Menghistu doesn’t dress like most of the refugees here. He walks around the run-down, densely populated African migrant area of south Tel Aviv looking likes he’s come fresh from a church service. As though he were an elder in the refugee community, the 34-year-old Eritrean asylum seeker receives hearty handshakes and pats on the back.
To pay for the poorly maintained apartment he shares with seven other men, Menghistu works for minimum wage as a cleaner. But every other waking minute is spent on New Century, the newspaper that he publishes for the 35,000-strong Eritrean community in Israel.

FrontPage of the newspaper

 “There are a lot of guys who were tortured, or imprisoned or killed or raped in Sinai...on the way to Israel. I want to tell the truth of what we faced in Sinai and on the way through the deserts,” Menghistu says, referring to the Egyptian territory. Through his newspaper, he says he also wants to convey “the life inside Israel: the expectation and the reality”.

A journey he knows well
The former accountant fled Eritrea in 2008 for fear of persecution. Menghistu saw what happened to others who championed freedom of the press there. After a gruelling two-year journey through Ethiopia, Sudan, Libya and Egypt, he arrived at the Israeli border, where he was welcomed by Israeli soldiers.

After 20 days at the Beersheba detention centre, he was given a one-way ticket to Tel Aviv. He spent the next three freezing winter months sleeping rough in Levinsky Park. Then, he found work and eventually a place to stay. Without a legal refugee status, and armed with his only two possessions – laptop and camera – he saved every penny for his newspaper.
In April 2011, Menghistu launched its first edition in Tigrinyan, one of Eritrea’s two main languages. The 3,000-copy print run was half-funded by Amnesty International, the rest from his own pocket.
The newspaper’s raison d'être was to inform Israeli-bound asylum seekers of the dangers they could expect and the reality of life inside the country. But attempts to have UNHCR distribute the publication in Ethiopia and Sudan were unsuccessful. Menghistu subsequently refocused its contents to focus on community-building: sharing asylum seekers’ stories, advising struggling couples and families and giving advice on the practicalities of everyday life in Israel, such as keeping a quiet Shabbat.
 Keeping afloat
Lately, New Century has struggled to keep afloat. It is printed sporadically, whenever money is available; so far, there have been eight editions.
 But this month things are different. Lily Galili, a 29-year veteran of Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, secured financing from the New Israel Fund to support New Century's publication for six more months.
Speaking about her own country’s leaders, Galili says: “If I can change the mindset of 10 people, or 100 people over time and make some of the politicians feel bad, I will say that’s a great achievement. I want them to feel bad.”
For Menghistu’s newspaper, she writes a column in Hebrew that endeavours to help Israeli society understand the Eritrean asylum seekers. Her column scheduled to appear at month’s end addresses Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai’s comments about making migrants’ lives so miserable they want to leave. As most of the Eritrean community doesn’t speak Hebrew, the statement largely fell on deaf ears. According to Galili, it didn’t matter.
“They don’t care about statements, they went through hell coming here, and they’re living in hell as refugees,” she says. “I met a guy with seven bullets in his body, accumulated through his trip through the desert. So what does he care what a minister says?”
Holding on
The next edition of New Century will discuss how to hold onto one’s culture. The topic seems pertinent since there’s a high incidence of family breakdown and violence within the Eritrean community. Traditional gender roles are frequently challenged: women adopt more liberal, Western dress standards and men struggle to find work.

“This is not our culture,” says Menghistu, referring to Israel. “We are here for a while. We will go back to our country, so don’t lose your culture, because if we are going back to our country, it may create a huge difficulty there.”
Menghistu is capable of more than just cleaning, he says. But with the constant threat of deportation, he lives for the moment. Long-term thinking is reserved for his next publication. “I hope to continue this newspaper,” he says. “I want to be a journalist. To tell them the reality as I can and as I know it.”

               source ; http://www.rnw.nl

EYSC-UK along with other youth and ENCDC members held a vocal but peaceful demonstration

EYSC-UK along with other youth and ENCDC members held a vocal but peaceful demonstration outside the PFDJ Festival at the Lee Valley centre in Enfield, London. Wearing black and white prisoners t-shirt and hand chained in solidarity, they brought the spirit of defiance to the streets of UK where the Eritrean community have turned their back on the PFDJ. Youth social and political defiance activism and political opposition organizations come together often, but rarely in such combustible form as in London demonstration yesterday.

'Human Rights and Justice' 'Release Prisoners of Conscience' 'Enough is Enough' 'Dictator Must Go', comprised some of the angry chants of the day.

The demonstration was called on the 11th Anniversary of the imprisonment of 11 members of Eritrean ministers and parliament known as G15 and 10 journalists. They are prisoners of conscience who have been detained without charge or trial solely for expressing their non-violent opinions like thousands of others who preceded and followed them. It is noted that the G11 led a growing mutiny or dissident demanding for a democratic reform through the implementation of the Eritrean Constitution and pluralism which affirms a multi-party civilian democratic political system with fair and free elections. Conversely the independent press that is essential for democracy and which published the dissenting views of the G15 were completely shut down and their journalists thrown into prison along with members of the G15.

Finally, we reminded the dwindling number of the PFDJ festival goers that we won’t rest until all prisoners of conscience are released and the demand of the Eritrean cause is realized. In the end all the demonstrators gathered one final time outside the venue and read out the names of the prisoners of conscience quite loudly one by one and said we have not forgotten you!

Illegal migrant in Greece killed during car chase near border with Turkey

 Greek police say an illegal migrant has been killed during a police chase near the border with Turkey in northeast Greece.
Police gave chase Sunday morning to three cars, two carrying illegal migrants and an escort vehicle, when one of the cars swerved and hit a barrier. The migrant, an Eritrean national in his late 20s, was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Two of the other eight migrants in the car were slightly injured. The escort car was stopped, but the third vehicle escaped. The migrants were from Eritrea, Morocco and Syria. The drivers of the cars, Georgian nationals, were arrested, as was the person, an Iranian, who apparently escorted the migrants across the border.
Tens of thousands cross illegally into Greece each year.

Mistreatment of refugees in Israel doesn't stop at border

Earlier this month, 21 Eritrean asylum seekers, including a 14-year-old child and two pregnant women, spent over a week trapped between fences on the Israeli side of the Israeli-Egyptian border. As the temperatures soared, one of the women reportedly miscarried. The group was not provided with any shelter; the "most moral army in the world" gave the refugees only small amounts of water and scraps of cloth to protect themselves from the sun.
Soldiers did not give them food and turned away the activists who tried to bring the asylum seekers something to eat.
After the two women and the child were let into Israel - where they were taken to prison - and the men were returned to Egypt, reports surfaced that the army behaved violently towards these refugees. According to the three who entered, soldiers shot tear gas at the group and used an iron pole in an attempt to push them back to Egypt. The 18 men who were returned to Egypt were returned by force.
International law prohibits states from forcibly returning asylum seekers to countries where their lives or liberty might be in danger, as does the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.
While this was a dramatic example of the Israeli army's treatment of the refugees, African refugees in Israel have faced the state's structural violence and an increasingly hostile public for over six years.
Although small numbers of African asylum seekers have been coming to Israel since the 1980s, a tremendous majority of the 60,000 refugees who are here now have arrived since 2005. More than 80 per cent are from war-torn Sudan or Eritrea, which are gripped by brutal dictatorships. After they enter the country, usually via the Egyptian border, those who are caught are jailed without charge for an arbitrary period; when Israel needs to make way for more prisoners, the asylum seekers are dumped in south Tel Aviv and other cities.
For those bearing the scars of war, detention in Israel is traumatising. Sunday Dieng, a 26-year-old asylum seeker, left his village in South Sudan when he was 10 years old after he saw his parents murdered by Sudanese forces. In Egypt, Dieng says, he faced racism and violence on the street. So, in 2006, he headed to Israel - only to spend his first 14 months behind bars.
"To live in jail for one year and two months for no reason … it's terrible, it's very difficult," Dieng says. "It causes some damage to the [mind], because you know you didn't do anything wrong, you didn't do any crime." Although Dieng was an adult when he arrived, unaccompanied minors make up a significant part of Israel's refugee population. And those children are also detained without charge.
Once out of jail, the state either refuses to process refugees' individual requests for asylum or arbitrarily rejects them without adequately investigating their claims. Instead, Israel gives citizens of Sudan and Eritrea group protection. So they get visas but those visas aren't work visas - forcing refugees onto the black market, where they face exploitation.
Many are unable to find jobs at all and, because they don't have citizenship or residency, they do not get help from the state. South Tel Aviv's parks are filled with homeless, emaciated refugees. Others scrape by on odd jobs and live in crowded apartments; sometimes two dozen asylum seekers will share a single room.
Their children, even those who are born here and speak fluent Hebrew, are not recognised by the state. Although they can attend municipal kindergartens and schools from the age of three, before then, their parents don't get help paying for day-care as poor Israelis do. So they are forced to send their toddlers to cheaper, unregulated black market day-cares, places one NGO worker refers to as "storage of children".
Mimi Hylameshesh, a single mother from Eritrea, earns approximately 2,000 Israeli shekels (Dh1,900) a month working as a house cleaner. Her rent is 1,500 shekels; day-care for her toddler runs another 600 shekels. What about food?
She shrugs and looks away, embarrassed. "It's hard for me," Hylameshesh says. But her child always eats.
When Hylameshesh doesn't have the money, she goes without food.
Mya Guarnieri is a Jerusalem-based journalist and writer who is working on a book about migrant workers and African refugees in Israel. She blogs at 972mag.com

Eritrean refugee builds full life in Saskatoon

Saba Keleta had to catch a connecting flight fast. Ground staff at Toronto's Pearson International Airport told her to forget the luggage check. Board the plane to Saskatoon, they said. We'll send the luggage on the next flight.
Two bags is all her mother and family had when leaving Africa 23 years ago. Saba saw the bags in Toronto on a Saturday night, but doesn't know where they landed, lost in transit. The airline paid for new luggage. Gone were family clothes and an album including pictures of Saba as a child with her two brothers and two sisters.
"Don't worry about tomorrow. Think of today," Saba said. "This is life. Let's use it."
She lives a new life in Canada. She sees different cultures and has a new circle of friends. Saba and her husband Ghere Tewelde are raising sons, Yonas, 22, also known as Johnathan, and Tesfa, 15, and daughter Fnan, 17.
The family owns Saba's African Cuisine on 22nd Street. On the restaurant menu are fresh roasted coffee and injera flatbread and spicy chickpeas and sauteed chicken. Beef cubes are tossed with rosemary, tomatoes and onions. The restaurant is open until 10: 30 p.m. on weekends. On busy nights, Saba cleans and does food prep until 4 in the morning.
"Sometimes I think, 'Here I am in North America, a place I learned about in geography,'" Saba said. "I think, 'Is this true? Am I here?' I have a dishwasher, a washing machine, a car - things I never had before. Now I have everything.
"Still, there is something missing in life. Rush, rush, rush. There are people in the world who have difficult experiences, who face many challenges. We should be thankful for what we have."
She has perspective.
She knows war.
Saba is from Agordat in Eritrea, a country by the Red Sea in eastern Africa.
Eritrea fought a war of independence from Ethiopia from 1961 to 1991. Homes were burned, civilians killed.
To protect themselves against shelling, Saba's family retreated in their yard to a bunker covered with blocks of coconut wood and sandbags. A tunnel connected the bunker to a bedroom in their house. This was her mother's idea.
"Any good time we had was on Saturday and Sunday," Saba said. "My uncle had an orchard about four kilometres away with lemons, grapefruit,
mango, papaya, some tomatoes and onions. We even picked cotton.
"We walked, sometimes took a donkey cart. We picked fruit. We played. We just hoped we didn't see soldiers."
The situation turned wicked on a weekend in March 1975. Saba calls it Black Sunday.
She and her younger sister Tigisti were at church. They were about to leave in late afternoon when a police officer from the station across the street told everyone to stay inside. Be safe, he said. Earlier in the day Eritrean guerrillas fighting for independence had shot and killed a boy who spied for the Ethiopian government. They left his body on the bank of the Barka River. The government struck back with bloody force.
"I wasn't sure I'd see my family again," Saba said.
Bombing stopped by 8 p.m. Saba and her sister ran home. With their two brothers and their mother, who was seven months pregnant, they walked out of town and lived in the wild for two days. Their father stayed to help bury the dead.

Fighting continued. Hope fractured. In the summer of 1979, everyone in Saba's family except her father left Eritrea for good.
"We walked at night for three days," Saba said. "We spent the day hiding under bush."
They ate bananas. Saba was bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion - she isn't sure which. She turned puffy and purple. She hurt all over, but survived.
She settled with her family in the Tehadeso refugee camp near the western border of Eritrea. A year later she joined her older brother in Kassala, Sudan. Saba and other refugees went to school in the afternoon. She learned a new language. Because Saba didn't have a phone, she talked by letter with her mother and sisters still in the refugee camp. She sent sugar and clothes. She visited them for a month at the end of her school year.
Her family soon moved to Sudan. A one-bedroom apartment was home for two boys, three girls and their mother for eight years.
They came to Canada in 1989.
Today Saba's oldest brother Bokrezion lives in Toronto. Brother Siem is in Yellowknife. Sisters Tigisti and Fortuna and mother Meniya, 75, are in Vancouver. Her father's first name, Keleta, is Saba's surname. Although he has been to Canada for two of his children's weddings, he says he is staying in Eritrea.
Saba is in Saskatoon, as is her uncle Girmazion, who grew the fruit and vegetables she picked on weekends in Africa.
"We made it," Saba said. "When you go through something difficult you become strong."
Her husband Ghere spent eight years in jail as a political prisoner. Using the pen name Mekalh Harnet, which means echo of liberty, he wrote an informative piece called Reflections on the Eritrean Revolution. You can read it at www. nharnet.com by checking the Sept. 18, 2006 archives.
Ghere and Saba met and married in Sudan. They were apart for four years until he followed her to Canada. Their link with Africa endures.
Saba sends money to her refugee school for teacher salaries. She helps immigrants in Saskatoon from all over the world, such as a woman who is new to the city, doesn't speak English, has four children and whose husband died this month.
Saba relaxes.
She goes boating on Christopher Lake where Shirley and Bernie Karstad have a place. The Karstads were members of Zion Lutheran Church in Saskatoon, which sponsored the Keleta family to come to Canada.
Saba lives and learns. She leads.
"My family knows Eritrea," she said of her daughter and two sons, all born in Saskatoon. "I talk to them about it. One day we'll go back. I want to show them my house, to see how life was.
"I want them to keep the culture, the dance, the food."
She has a vision.
"I want them to respect people.

Eritrean refugee protest outside Israeli embassy

The ongoing controversy over Israel’s treatment of African immigrants came to the streets of London as more than 100 Eritrean refugees protested outside the Israeli embassy.
Thousands of young men flee every year to escape compulsory national service and the ruling régime. Human trafficking, arms smuggling, rape, murder and electrocution are among the risks they face as they travel from Eritrea through Sudan and the Sinai desert in an effort to cross into Israel.
Last Friday’s protest, organised by Eritrean Youth Solidarity for Change and Citizens for Democratic Rights in Eritrea, was in response to Israeli plans for a large detention centre for African immigrants, near the Egyptian border.
There was a spate of attacks on Africans in Tel Aviv earlier this summer, and Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai waged a war of words on African immigrants, blaming them for spreading disease and crime and threatening to fine local authorities which employ illegal immigrants.
Protesters in London also delivered a petition, signed by more than 2,300 people, to Israeli ambassador Daniel Taub. It raised the issue of “alarming increases in the discriminatory treatment of Eritrean refugees in Israel”.
The petition stated: “Such senseless hate, fuelled in part by right-wing politicians, has led to Eritreans being attacked on the street and in their homes. Eritreans today are living in a general climate of fear in Israel.”
Hermon Yohannes of the EYSC said: “This emergency protest was in response to the imminent building of the detention centre and Eli Yishai’s calls for Sudanese refugees to be rounded up in Israel, and for Eritreans to be next.
“We wanted to highlight what appears to be inhumane treatment. Israel has an obligation to follow the Refugee Convention and we urge it to uphold international standards.”
An Israeli embassy spokesman said the partially-constructed centre was being used “to facilitate eligibility for refugee status and to provide a venue where illegal migrants can reside, with all humanitarian requirements, until they can be repatriated”.
The spokesman added: “The ongoing flow of illegal migrants, be it to Israel or any other country, is not sustainable and will bring no real benefit to anyone. Unlike a number of European countries which have a policy of forced repatriation, Israel has a policy that illegal migrants are only repatriated with the agreement and co-operation of their home countries, something which we do not currently have with Eritrea.”

UNESCO chief speaks out against deaths of journalists in Syria and Eritrea

12 September 2012 – The head of the United Nations agency tasked with defending press freedom today condemned the recent killing of a Syrian journalist, and voiced grave concern over the death of three Eritrean media workers who had been kept in a prison camp for over a decade.
The Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, said she was “appalled” at the killing of Musab Mohamed Said Al-Oudaallah, who is reported to have been killed in his home in the Syrian capital of Damascus on 22 August.
“Once again, I call on all those fighting in Syria to respect the civilian status of reporters and the basic human right of freedom of expression,” she stated in a news release.
 Mr. Al-Oudaallah was a journalist for the arts and culture section of the government newspaper Tishreen. According to the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, he also published articles critical of the Government under a pseudonym.

At least 28 local and international journalists have been killed this year in Syria, which has been wracked by violence since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 18 months ago.
More than 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since fighting broke out and reports indicate a major escalation of violence in recent weeks in many towns and villages, as well as the country’s two biggest cities, Aleppo and Damascus.
Ms. Bokova also spoke out over the death of Dawit Habtemichael, Mattewos Habteab and Wedi Itay, who were reported to have been arrested separately in 2001 and kept in a prison camp in Eritrea for over a decade.
She urged the authorities to respect journalists’ fundamental rights to freedom of expression and free those detained over issues related to these rights.
“I deplore the detention of journalists in Eritrea, whose only offence is that they tried to exercise the inalienable human right of freedom of expression. I call on the Eritrean authorities to free all such prisoners,” said the Director-General.
“Journalists must be able to perform their duties and keep the public informed without fearing for their lives,” she added.

OMG

YPFDJ keep dancing

Dorhona

PFDJ's victims

PFDJ's victims

Eritrea the Nation Where You Need A Permit To Have Dinner With Friends

Yishai Halper has a article today in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, detailing the ridiculous limits on personal freedom in the African nation of Eritrea.
The first paragraph is a killer:

It's not a simple matter to drop by a friend's house for dinner in Eritrea. If the meal is to be attended by at least three guests from various families, the authorities already consider it a gathering that requires a special permit. Nor would travel to an adjacent village be possible without a similar permit. And if you have an urge to write a song on a slip of paper, you need to be mindful that it could be construed as anti-government propaganda that could land you in jail.

Eritrea even beat out North Korea in Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom index to come flat last out of 179 countries. Halper has many more great details about a terrible regime in his article.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/eritrea-the-african-nation-where-you-need-a-permit-to-have-dinner-with-friends-2012-9#ixzz25yQQgWWr

Egyptian security kill Eritrean on Israel border

Egypt has sought to assure Israel it is preventing Africans using their
country as a transit to enter Israeli territory.

A young Eritrean migrant was killed by Egyptian security forces early Sunday as he attempted to cross the Sinai border with Israel, security officials said.

The body of Ayoub Kabaki, 25, was taken to Rafah hospital.

Security officials said he was shot when he failed to respond to calls to surrender while approaching the border.

Another 26 Africans were detained by security forces on Sunday morning and transferred to El-Arish prison. Security sources said the group told investigators they paid $1,000 to be smuggled into Israel.

Egypt has sought to assure Israel it is preventing Africans from using their country as a transit to enter Israeli territory via the porous Sinai border.

Israel has cracked down on Africans in the country, jailing and deporting communities from South Sudan and the Ivory Coast and pledging to do the same for people from Sudan and Eritrea.

A group of Africans camped out on Israel's border with Egypt for almost a week until Israel announced it would turn away 17 and admit three on Thursday.

Israel says most migrants are job-seekers and will upset the Jewish majority in Israel. Humanitarian organizations say the majority are refugees fleeing war-torn countries.

Some Israelis have been troubled that their country, founded by war refugees and immigrants, should be packing off foreigners en masse.

‘A Stand in the Sinai’: A CNN Freedom Project Documentary

• Follow-up to CNN’s award-winning documentary ‘Death in the Desert’ which uncovered the shocking trade of organ trafficking in the Sinai Desert
• Progress discovered in Sinai Peninsula since last year’s original
  

TX: Friday 21 September at 2130 BST

African refugees, mostly from Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, face a dangerous journey crossing Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as they seek a better life in Israel.
As reported in last year’s award-winning CNN Freedom Project documentary ‘Death in the Desert’, the reality that awaits these migrants is often slavery, rape, imprisonment and torture.
In ‘Death in the Desert’, CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen uncovered evidence that many of these refugees trying to reach Israel had fallen into the hands of human traffickers in the Sinai. These traffickers then tortured the refugees, and in some cases harvested their organs for sale on the black market, leaving many of their victims to die.
In 2012, in ‘A Stand in the Sinai: A CNN Freedom Project Documentary’, Pleitgen returns to the Sinai and finds a different reality now awaits the constant flow of African refugees. He speaks to Bedouin tribal leaders who say they are now working to battle human trafficking in the region, offering medical support and safe havens for these refugees.
Bedouin Sheikh Mohammed Abu Billal tells Pleitgen these refugees usually come to him with “signs of torture and rape, dressed in rags and starved…methods of oppression to exploit them for money. The burden is heavy on me, but it is a responsibility called upon us by Islam…that is why I spend my money to harbour them and bring happiness to their hearts at any cost,” says Sheikh Mohammed.
“When the CNN Freedom Project first discovered the atrocities taking place in the Sinai, it was not enough to do a standalone report,” says Tony Maddox, Executive vice president and managing director of CNN International. “Fred’s continued commitment to this story speaks to the Freedom Project’s core mission: that is to uncover stories of modern-day slavery, bring them to light, raise awareness and hopefully contribute to effective change.”
Earlier this year, the U.S.-based Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. recognised ‘Death in the Desert’ with the prestigious Tom Renner Award for its investigative coverage of organised crime or other criminal acts, citing the CNN team’s “great personal risk in crossing the dangerous badlands of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to expose a network of human trafficking and organ sales.”

Israel to admit 3 Eritrean refugees stranded at border

Israeli officials said they would take in only two women and a teenager for humanitarian reasons and that the rest of the group would be removed from the fence area and taken to Cairo by Egyptian authorities.
"It is important that everyone understands that Israel is no longer a destination for infiltrators," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
Government officials said the refugees agreed to the arrangement, but representatives for the group could not be reached to verify the statement. The Israeli military has prevented aid groups and activists from reaching the Eritreans to provide food, medical care and legal assistance.
Activists criticized the arrangement, saying that refugees previously returned to Egypt had been mistreated by authorities there.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli human rights group We Are Refugees petitioned the Supreme Court to order the Israeli government to assist all of the refugees, contending that leaving them at the fence was a violation of international law and Israel's obligation as a signatory to the U.N. refugee convention.
Aid groups say the Eritreans had run out of food and water, were suffering under the desert sun and were afraid to turn back to Egypt because of Bedouin gangs of human traffickers in the Sinai who routinely rob, kidnap and kill African refugees trying to make their way to Israel to start new lives.
"These people are suffering behind a fence," said Orit Marom, a coordinator for the Tel Aviv-based Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel. "But Israel does not let them in. It's crazy. It reminds [the Jewish people] of a very bad period in our own history."
Government officials refused to allow in the entire group, saying they were worried about setting a precedent that would encourage other African refugees to attempt to enter Israel. Since 2006, more than 60,000 African refugees, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, have flooded into Israel via the Sinai peninsula, according to the government.
Initially the military said it gave the Eritreans only water, but government attorneys told the court Thursday — before the reported agreement was reached — that authorities would start providing food.
William Tall, senior protection officer in Israel with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, called Israel's actions "exaggerated and irrational."
Tall noted that even though the refugees were blocked by the fence, Israel had acknowledged that the group was on Israeli territory because the fence was built on Israel's side of the border.

An Israeli soldier hands water to one of the African refugees stranded at… (Yehuda Lahiani)

"They are on Israeli territory and asking for asylum," Tall said. "It's absolutely clear that Israel has an obligation to review their asylum claims."
The government disagreed, saying it has no legal obligation because under international practice and precedent, the fence should be considered the de facto border in this situation.
"Technically the land may be sovereign Israeli territory, but legally the fence constitutes the border," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.
He said Israel does not want to set a precedent under which it assists all refugees who make it to the fence.
"Where does it stop?" he asked. "You have to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise the fence is meaningless."
The standoff is the latest controversy in Israel's effort to cope with a surge in African refugees, who view Israel as the closest wealthy and democratic nation they can reach on foot.
Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai this summer began deporting hundreds of South Sudanese who fled violence in their homeland. He also ordered the detention of hundreds of others.
Israeli officials say the refugees, along with migrant workers and other foreigners, pose a threat to the nation's economy and Jewish majority. Many foreigners in recent months have been subjected to a violent backlash, including beatings and firebombs thrown at their homes.
Israel also sped up construction of the 150-mile fence along the Egyptian border. The crackdown appears to have slowed the influx. The number of refugees crossing the border fell from 2,000 a month at its peak last year to 200 in August, the government says.

Missing relatives

I would like to ask some questions about the family Micallef, originally from Malta. The name we are tracing is Rogiero Antonio Micallef. During the Italian colonial period, Mr Micallef left Malta for the port of Massawa, Eritrea. He lived in Massawa for a while and then went to Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. It is not known how long he lived in Asmara.

After a while he went to live in Keren where he met an Eritrean woman and married her; he had six children from that marriage. The name of his wife was Bekita Drar and it was also sometimes referred to as Leteiyesus Drar. The last name was her Catholic name.
His children were Rosina Micallef, Carmella Micallef, Angelica Micallef, Antonio Micallef, Ernesto Micallef and Mathilde Micallef. His grandchildren are Michael Antonio Micallef, Vitorio Antonio Micallef, Augostino Antonio Micallef, Andrea Antonio Micallef, Mario Antonio Micallef, Anna Antonio Micallef, Ellena Antoni Micallef, Santina Antonio Micallef and Roma Antoni Micallef.
The grandchildren of Ernesto are Guissepe Ernesto Micallef, Salvatore Ernesto Micallef, Stefano Ernesto Micallef, Maria Ernesto Micallef and Margareta Antoni Micallef. The rest of his children had no grandchildren. His children were Italian nationals and are registered as Catholics in the Catholic church of St Antonio di Padova in Keren.
Mr Micallef worked as a gardener in Keren where he was also an interpreter. In 1940-1941 war broke out between Italy and Britain. The British defeated the Italians and ruled Eritrea for 10 years. Then the Eritreans asked their freedom but instead of that Eritrea was merged with Ethiopia. The Eritreans fought for their independence for 30 years and won it in 1991.
The family Micallef would like to know more about their families in Malta. Our contact details are as follows: Saint Anthony Catholic Parish Church, P.O. Box 30, Keren, Eritrea. Tel: 00291 1 402630 or 00291 1 401044; Fax: 00291 1 402630.

Time Is Running Out for Eritrean Journalists Held in Communicado for Over Decade, Says IFJ

Fear is mounting over the fate of a group of Eritrean journalists who have been held without charges since 2001, following the regime's clampdown on independent media. The International Federation of Journalists (IF), which has from the beginning campaigned for their release, today called on the Eritrean government to disclose information about their situation amid reports that some have died.
"These journalists have been denied justice by the regime's unconscionable disregard for their fundamental rights," said Jim Boumelha, IFJ President. "Now their very lives are at risk and time is running out to save them. The authorities must disclose their whereabouts and state of health."
The IFJ says the Eritrean authorities have resisted previous calls for the journalists' release, denying even requests to provide information about their conditions of detention and to allow family visits. In 2007, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights found Eritrea in breach of the journalists' rights and ordered their release or a speedy trial and fair trial but the government failed to comply with the ruling.
The Federation estimates that at least 18 journalists have been detained without charges since the Eritrean government imposed a ban on independent media in September 2001. They include Zemenfes Haile, founder and manager of independent weekly Tsigenay, his editor-in-chief Yosef Mohamed Ali and reporter Ghebrehiwet Keleta, Selamyinghes Beyene, reporter for MeQaleh, Binyam Haile of Haddas Eritre, Seyoum Tsehaye, freelance and former Director of Eritrean State Television (ETV), Temesgen Gebreyesus of Keste Debena, Mattewos Habteab (MeQaleh), Dawit Habtemicheal (MeQaleh), Medhanie Haile, editor-in-chief (Keste Debena), Fessahye Yohannes, editor-in-chief of Setit, Said Abdulkadir, chief editor of Admas, Amanuel Asrat, chief editor of Zemen, Amanuel Asrat (Zemen) and Dawit Isaac, a dual Eritrean and Swedish national. He had returned to his native Eritrea after independence and helped launch the country's first independent newspaper, Setit. Dawit was briefly released in 2005 but re-arrested and there has been no official information on the journalists' situation.

Dawit Isaak,  left Sweden for Eritrea to help build the country's independent press

This week in Swedish, an online campaign '4000 days' is being organised on social media, Facebook and on Twitter '#fourthousand', to mark the 4000 days he and his colleagues have spent in detention.
Recent reports have claimed that some of the detainees have died after the Eritrean officials acknowledged earlier this year that some of the journalists had died in detention but refused to give names.
"These reports will understandably add to the anguish and distress of the journalists' families and colleagues," added Beth Costa, IFJ General Secretary. "This may be the last chance to save Isaac and his colleagues and we must pile on the pressure on Eritrea to release them."