Saturday, December 10, as the world remembered International Human Rights Day, advocacy group Amnesty International (AI) said.
"Human rights in Eritrea are systematically violated by President Isaias Afewerki’s government, which has been in power since the country’s independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after a 30-year liberation war," explained AI in a report focusing on three years of persecution of members of evangelical Christian churches.
AI said it has learned that "at least 26 pastors and priests, and over 1,750 church members, including children and 175 women, and some dozens of Muslims, are detained because of their religious beliefs." The group stressed it "considers them to be prisoners of conscience" as they "have also been detained on account of their beliefs."
The Eritrean authorities have denied the existence of persecution in the country. They say "no groups or persons are persecuted" in the country for their beliefs or religion and that people have been free to worship according to their wish within the laws.
CHURCHES CLOSED
However AI investigations allegedly showed that since 2002 "churches have been shut down by the government and many members have been tortured in an attempt to force them to stop worshipping and to thereby abandon their faith.
Members of new groups within the officially-permitted Orthodox Church and Islam have also been detained on account of their beliefs."
In 2002 Eritrea’s government ordered the closure of all churches not belonging to the Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Evangelical Lutheran denominations. So far, at least 36 churches have been closed and "many followers of these churches and their leaders have been imprisoned, harassed and tortured," Release Eritrea, another human rights group claimed recently.
TORTURE ROUTINE
AI noted that "torture" has "routinely been used as a punishment for critics of the government and members of minority faiths, as well as for offences committed by military conscripts."
It added that "arbitrary incommunicado detention without charge or trial is widespread and long-lasting" and explained that "several prisoners of conscience have been held thus for over a decade." Many detainees are held in secret and their whereabouts are not known, AI claimed.
The group argued that violations of the right to freedom of religion in Eritrea are indirectly linked "to a far-reaching pattern of violations of the right to expression of non-violent political opinions and the right to association."
RELIGIOUS PRISONERS
Religious prisoners of conscience who have no connection with political opposition groups "are subjected to the same torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, and the same arbitrary and incommunicado detention, as prisoners of conscience detained on account of their political opinions," AI said.
It also expressed concern that the "rule of law in Eritrea is severely undermined by the lack of an effective or independent judiciary" and noted that "lawyers do not dare to challenge the government in the courts." Non-government organizations (NGOs) are "heavily restricted" and "international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International are denied entry," AI said.
However President Afewerki has reportedly defended his policy towards NGO’s. He was quoted as saying that several religious groups have been "duped by foreigners" who sought to "distract from the unity of the Eritrean people and distort the true meaning of religion."
Reports of violations of human and religious rights come at a time of growing fears of a new armed conflict with neighboring Ethiopia. Two thirds of the population are dependent on international emergency food aid following the 1998-2000 armed conflict with Ethiopia, AI said. Among them are reportedly returning refugees from Sudan and an estimated 70,000 internally displaced persons. (With reports from Eritrea and BosNewsLife Research).
