NEWS ALERT: Eritrea Arrests Mother of Dying Baby, Church Leaders Detained (Update)

police, her 6-month-old son has died on his sickbed in Nefasit, 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of the capital Asmara, a Christian news agency reported Friday, May 19.

Compass Direct said Ghenet Gebremariam was arrested on May 8 with two other Protestant women, all members of Nefasit’s banned Full Gospel Church. They were detained on accusations of "actively witnessing about Christ" to the inhabitants of their town, local Christians were quoted as saying. All three were mothers and reportedly forced to leave their young children behind in their homes.

Two days later, Gebremariam’s baby, Hazaiel Daniel, apparently died of unknown causes. When news of the baby’s death reached security police in Nefasit, they agreed to release his mother on bail, Compass Direct said.  The other two mothers, Meslale Abraham and Alganshe Tsagay, remain in police custody, still separated from their children, Christians claimed.

The situation of their children was not immediately clear. Eritrean police officials have given no reason for the arrest of the three women, apart from their involvement in one of Eritrea’s outlawed Protestant churches. Since May of 2002, the Eritrean government banned all Christian churches independent of the Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran communities.

WORSHIPPING PUNISHED

Any violators caught worshipping or practicing their faith outside the three government-sanctioned churches are jailed for weeks, months or even years, churches and human rights groups say. Hundreds have reportedly been subjected to what Christians call “severe physical mistreatment over the past four years" in an attempt to force them to recant their Protestant beliefs. Nearly 2,000 Christians are believed to be in different prisons and detention facilities. Some are held in containers, according to investigators. 

Compass Direct said that the latest arrests came shortly after a separate crackdown two weeks ago when 50 evangelical Christian students were put under "harsh military punishment" at Mai Nefhee Educational Institution, a military service center in Asmara.

Students’ relatives have told reporters that the 33 young women and 17 men were reported to the authorities during the first week of May to be "evangelical believers." Their discovery was attributed to an intensive campaign mounted by the Defense Ministry and its military personnel to identify all students at the institution who were involved in "illegal" Protestant activities.

STUDENTS DETAINED

The pretext for punishing the students, however, was their alleged refusal to participate in a cultural show for the Independence Day celebrations slated for May 25, sources said, apparently on condition of anonymity.

"All these students are under military punishment during their exam time," a source told Compass Direct, "on the occasion that our nation is preparing to celebrate its Independence Day." Last month, the Eritrean government also jailed three more leaders of the Orthodox Church’s Medhane Alem renewal movement, cracking down on widespread reaction to the excommunication of 65 of the group’s members, the news agency said.

A March 28 circular letter reportedlz sent by the Eritrean Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod officially excommunicated 65 key members and coordinators of the long-established Sunday School movement within the Orthodox church. The expelled Christians reportedly had refused to confess that the Medhane Alem movement and its leaders were "heretics" whose objectives were to destroy the Eritrean Orthodox Church.

A week later, on April 4, three of the excommunicants were arrested and sent to prison. The three men were accused of instigating open resistance to the church’s decree banishing them from their mother church, Compass Direct added.

PROTESTANT BUSINESSMEN

Meanwhile, two Protestant businessmen jailed last December have been released from prison, but only after posting stiff bail payments, Asmara sources were quoted as saying. Solomon Mengesteab, a businessman from the Full Gospel Church, and a photoshop owner from the Rema Church identified only as Mr. Yosief, were reportedly issued harsh warnings and ordered to pay 150,000 Nakfa (US$10,000) bail to secure their release. The annual per capita income in Eritrea, one of the world’s poorest countries, is less than $300.

The men had been arrested in pre-Christmas raids targeting known evangelical businessmen and women for their participation in and financial support of outlawed churches. However Yosief’s wife, along with a dozen or more employees of their Photo Asier shop, remains in prison, Christians said.

Nearly 1,800 Christians, including 28 pastors and priests from both Protestant and Orthodox churches, are now under arrest in police stations, military camps and jails all across Eritrea because of their religious beliefs, human rights groups say. An additional 70 Muslims have been jailed for the past two years for opposing the government’s appointment of the chief mufti. None have been brought to court on formal charges, Compass Direct reported.

The Eritrean government has denied human rights abuses saying "no groups or persons are persecuted in Eritrea for their beliefs or religion." (With reports from Eritrea).