Eritrean Christian dies in prison

According to open doors :  last week another Eritrean Christian has died while in detention in Eritrea.
This report follows several others in recent months. Sources reporting the death indicated about 45 other believers are held in horrendous circumstances in dungeon-like cells at Ala. They are enduring severe military punishment because they are unwilling to stop their Protestant religious practices.
Open Doors also received reports that indicate the government's continuation of an extensive arrest campaign against Christians started at the beginning of the year. This month, the government conducted sweeping arrests of 125 Christians in Barentu.
Of the most recently reported death, Belay Gebrezgi Tekabo, whose age is unknown, died at Ala Military Camp about 20 miles from the southern Eritrean town of Dekemhare. He was arrested last April in the military training camp for "praying and reading his Bible."

Belay endured severe military punishment during his incarceration for his continued religious activities. He was diagnosed with leukemia six months prior to his death, but officials told him he could only go to the Dekemhare hospital for treatment if he was willing to sign a recantation statement.

On Saturday, March 16, police officers arrested 17 Christians in Keren while they were together at the home of one of those arrested. The group included six female students. They are kept at the Keren Police Station. Although it is customary for family members to take food to relatives in prisons, officers are not allowing anyone to visit this group.
In 2002, the Eritrean government banned all Christian denominations except the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Roman Catholicism, and Evangelical Lutheranism. With the exception of Sunni Islam, all other religious practice was banned.
The government also decreed that non-registered groups could not gather in numbers of more than five. No new churches have been registered since 2002. Security forces continue to disrupt private worship, conduct mass arrests at prayer meetings and other gatherings, and detain those arrested for indefinite periods without charge.
At last estimates, at least 3,000 Christians are imprisoned in Eritrea, and say Voice of the Martyrs sources: nearly every evangelical has been arrested at least once. Most are never formally charged and never receive a court hearing. Prisoners are tortured and subjected to extremely poor living conditions, often locked in metal shipping containers or underground bunkers. Several have died in custody.

Eritrean terrorist gets 9 years in prison

Al Shabaab fighters in Somaliya

An Eritrean man who admitted to having ties to the al Qaeda-linked militant group al Shabaab was sentenced on Wednesday to 9-1/4 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said.


Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to provide material support to al Shabaab, and to conspiring to receive military-type training from the group.
Ahmed, 38, was arrested in Nigeria in November 2009 and brought to Manhattan federal court to face U.S. terrorism charges in March 2010. He is an Eritrean national and a permanent resident of Sweden.
"Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed traveled thousands of miles to align himself with al Shabaab to aid their campaign of terror and to learn their 'ways of war,'" Bharara said in a statement. "Today, his journey ends in prison."
U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel sentenced Ahmed, who has been in custody since June, according to his lawyer Sabrina Shroff, a federal public defender.
The U.S. State Department considers al Shabaab a foreign terrorist organization.
A law enforcement official said that if Ahmed had gone to trial, senior al Shabaab operative Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame would have been a key witness against him.
On Monday, Bharara's office said Warsame had pleaded guilty to nine U.S. criminal charges.
Unsealed government documents said Warsame commanded "hundreds" of al Shabaab fighters at one point and later served as a liaison between the Somalia-based militant group and Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, regarded as one of al Qaeda's most dangerous affiliates.
Warsame was captured by U.S. authorities in April 2011, held and interrogated aboard a U.S. Navy ship for about two months, then moved into federal custody in New York.
In June, prosecutors recommended a 10-year prison term for Ahmed in exchange for his plea.
Shroff had argued for a five-year prison term, followed by immediate deportation, according to court documents.
"Given his nonexistent connections with the United States, and his complete lack of animosity toward its people, I am very disappointed with the sentence," Shroff said.

AU Commission to Take Up Dawit Isaak's Case

Reporters Without Borders, said on Wednesday that, the African Union's main human rights body has decided to investigate the case of imprisoned Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak.
Eritrean authorities detained Isaak in September 2001 for writing articles critical of the government and has since been held incommunicado.

He is one of the many journalists and reform-minded government figures who remain languishing in Eritrea's underground detention centers since a government crack down in 2001.
The Swedish office of Reporters Without Borders has highly welcomed the decision of African Union human rights panel to probe Isaak's case.
The press freedom group also commended the concerns shown by the newly-appointed Special Rapporteur for Eritrea over the situations of Eritrean journalists.
"It is important step forward and will increase the pressure on the Eritrean government" said Jonathan Lundqvist, president to the Swedish section of Reporters Without Borders.
Dawit Issaak's case was referred to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights on 27 October, by three European jurists.
Lundqvist says bringing the case to the AU panel would not only put more pressure on the Eritrean government but also will make the case an African issue.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights will soon begin examining the case by first requesting explanations from the Eritrean government as to why the Red Sea nation breached the country's law as well as several African and international human rights conventions the country is signatory for.
Established by the African Union (AU), the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights was designed to protect and promote human rights and interprets the African Charter.
Eritrea's Supreme Court has in the past refused to hear the case although the government states that habeas corpus is a principle respected and that the country's courts are independent.
International human rights organisations routinely label the country as one of the planet's most repressive. Eritrea has for many years been ranked among the worst places to be a journalist, jailing more members of the press than any other African country
According to investigations revealed by Reporters Without Borders last August, four journalists, who were detained around the same time as Isaak, have died in prison.
Isaak is among dozens of journalists arrested during government crack down in 2001 along with 15 senior government officials who were also then arrested after criticizing President Isaias Afewerki and asking him to allow political reform following the 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia.

Eritrean government jails 125 Christians

Christians are known to have been held in shipping containers 

There was uncertainty Tuesday, March 5, about the situation of 125 Eritrean Christians who were "beaten and detained" in western Eritrea as part of a new government campaign against Christians worshiping outside the state-backed churches, rights investigators said.
At least 85 of them were arrested over the last week, said Open Doors, a major Christian advocacy and aid group. Among them are 45 men and women who were arrested February 27 for worshiping "outside the Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Churches," the group said.
All of those detained since January are members of an evangelical denomination in the south-western town of Barentu, according to Open Doors investigators.

"Open Doors understands that police arrested these church members from homes and workplaces during broad
daylight and then marched them through town to the police station while beating them," the group said.
Eritrea's autocratic President Isaias Afewerki has denied wrongdoing.
MANY DETAINED
At least an estimated 1,500 devoted Christians remain detained for their faith in prison facilities ranging from shipping containers, to military prison camps and other facilities, some for years.
Other sources say the figure may be over 2,000 Christians, though some have been released while several Christians are known to have died during their imprisonment.
The reported crackdown began in 2002 when all churches except those belonging to the Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran denominations were effectively banned Members of independent evangelical and charismatic churches are particularly singled out, according to local Christians and international rights groups.
However even within the established churches, leaders and devoted Christians have reported harassment.
Orthodox patriarch Abune Antonios, for instance, has been under house arrest since 2006 for resisting government interference in church affairs, and priests seen as sympathizing with him are reportedly detained and harassed.
GOVERNMENT DEFENDS POLICIES

Full Gospel  Eritrean church (Asmara) closed since 2002

President Afewerki has said the policies are aimed at religious groups who are "duped by foreigners", seeking to "distract from the unity of the Eritrean people and distort the true meaning of religion."
The African nation has come under international pressure to allow more religious freedom. In a recent report, the U.S. State Department noted that, "The government continued to harass and detain thousands of members of registered and unregistered religious groups and retained substantial control over the four registered religious groups."
The government also "failed to approve religious groups that fulfilled the registration requirements and arrested persons during religious gatherings," the State Department said.
Additionally, "The government subjected religious prisoners to harsh conditions and held them for long periods of time, without due process. There continued to be reports of forced renunciations of faith, torture, and deaths while in custody," it said.
Eritrean Christians join a long list of Christians suffering for their faith.

Eritrean activists prevent Sophia Tesfamariam's visit

Sophia Tesfamariam

Agroup of Eritrean Winnipeggers is trying to prevent Eritrean-American   woman who made incendiary remarks such as "evil Jews" from entering Canada again.
"I don't know how the Canadian border agency would let this woman come again," said Eritrean refugee Daniel Awshek. He attended an event in Winnipeg in 2010 where he said expatriate Eritrean Sophia Tesfamariam made the remarks and shamed people who had fled Eritrea, urging them to send the regime money.
She is expected to visit Canada Sunday, starting with a fundraiser in Vancouver, said Daniel. The U.S.-based Tesfamariam does fundraising and public appearances throughout the Eritrean diaspora, promoting the government of Eritrea.
Her Winnipeg visit two years ago riled human rights activists. After hearing a recording of her speech, B'nai Brith Canada asked that Tesfamariam be barred further entry to Canada, said David Matas, honorary senior counsel for the human rights group.
"She was giving a speech here before which was anti-Semitic, and she's raising money for the Eritrean regime -- a regime subject to UN sanctions, and Canada co-operated with the sanctions," said Matas, an international human rights lawyer.
In it, she repeatedly accused Israel of being engaged in terrorist activities and blamed the Jewish state for destabilizing the Middle East.
She said, "...don't be evil like them (the Jews); don't blow up people, don't do things that are evil..."
Inciting hatred of a group is a criminal offence in Canada. Immigration law bars a person from entering Canada if there are reasonable grounds to believe the individual will commit a criminal offence.
 "If she is allowed entry, the attorney general of British Columbia should commence a prosecution against her for public incitement to hatred and wilful promotion of hatred," Matas said.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on the Eritrean government in 2009 for arming and equipping insurgents trying to topple the government of struggling Somalia.
"In her public speech in Winnipeg, she defended Al Shabab as a Somali nationalist force unfairly maligned by the West," Matas said. Al Shabab is listed in Canada as a terrorist organization.
The UN has endorsed sanctions against the Eritrean regime for its arming of Somali terrorists, and Canada participates in the sanctions, Matas said.In her Winnipeg speech, Tesfamariam defended the levy of a two per cent income tax on expatriate Eritreans as a donation to the Eritrean military, he said.
"The department of Foreign Affairs has warned expats against giving money to the regime, and Canada has warned the (Eritrean consulate) against collecting the two per cent tax," said Matas.
Awshek, a nurse and evangelical Christian, said he doesn't want refugees from Eritrea being coerced by Tesfamariam to send money to the regime they fled.
"Stop this woman and let us live in peace and integrate into Canadian society," he said.
Canadian Border Services Agency spokesman Sean Best said admissibility to Canada is decided at the port of entry at the time the person seeking entry arrives there.
He said all persons seeking entry must meet the legal requirements for doing so.

Agroup of Winnipeggers is trying to prevent a U.S. woman who made incendiary remarks such as "evil" Jews from entering Canada again. - See more at: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/bar-pro-eritrean-activist-from-canada-group-says-194455181.html#sthash.4z5iSwmi.dpuf