Twenty years ago today the Eritrean authorities arrested Reverend Haile Naizge and Dr Kuflu Gebremeskel. Both were prominent religious leaders in the country, the former serving as the chair of the Full Gospel Church, and the latter as chair of the Eritrean Evangelical Alliance and a visiting lecturer at the former University of Asmara.
They have been detained incommunicado ever since.
The arrests of Reverend Naizge and Dr Gebremeskel are not the only anniversaries Eritrea marks this month. In May 2002 the government effectively outlawed religious practices not affiliated with Sunni Islam or the Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran or Orthodox Christian denominations. Since then, all other religious groups have been required to register in order to freely practise their faith, but the process to do this is onerous, intrusive and ultimately inconclusive, as the final step consists of the president’s signature.
The arbitrary arrests of these high-profile church leaders marked an escalation in a crackdown on Christians in Eritrea that began in earnest in May 2001 and continues to date. Several other prominent Christian leaders who were arrested during 2004 are also fast approaching the same milestone of two decades in arbitrary detention.
On 3 June 2004, less than two weeks after the arrests of Reverend Naizge and Dr Gebremeskel, the government detained Reverend Million Gebreselassie, pastor of the Rhema Evangelical Church in the city of Massawa and an anaesthetist at Massawa Hospital.
Later that year, on 19 November, Orthodox priests Dr Futsum Gebrenegus, at the time Eritrea’s only psychiatrist, Dr Tekleab Menghisteab, a highly respected physician, and Reverend Gebremedhin Gebregiorgis, were all detained, despite belonging to a denomination that is ostensibly permitted to operate by the government. All three belonged to the Church’s renewal movement, Medhane Alem, which had attracted a large youth following, and which the late patriarch, Abune Antonios, had refused to close down following a government order.
A seventh leader, Reverend Kidane Weldou, senior pastor of the Full Gospel Church, was seized from the streets of Asmara on 18 March 2005.
It is believed that all seven are currently being held in Wengel Mermera Investigation Centre, one of an estimated 300 detention facilities across the country that include everything from shipping containers to underground cells to open air spaces in the desert surrounded by thorns. Conditions in these facilities are unsanitary and unsatisfactory, with access to food, water and medical attention insufficient and often withheld as punishment.
Another prominent leader arrested on 23 May 2004 is Reverend Tesfatsion Hagos, the founder-leader of the Rhema Evangelical Church. While incarcerated he lost a kidney due to regular and sustained assaults which also damaged his remaining kidney and was released in 2010 only because he was not expected to live. He somehow managed to flee the country, and eventually reunited with his family in Australia.
Almost all of the imprisoned church leaders have lost close family members whose funerals they were unable to attend. For example, Reverend Naizge’s mother, who was seriously ill at the time of his detention, died without being able to see her son again. Reverend Hagos’ father died while he was still detained, and Dr Gebrenegus also lost his father. In addition, Dr Gebrenegus’ wife died of cancer, and in 2022 Reverend Gebregiorgis’ wife, Tsgeweyni Mekonnen Haile, also died of cancer.
Tens of thousands of other Eritrean citizens have also been detained without charge or trial in such facilities over the past two decades. Among them at present are an estimated 400 Christians, including 220 Evangelicals and at least 150 Orthodox adherents, as well as 36 Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Non-recognised religious groups are particularly vulnerable to government harassment and repression, however, even those belonging to government-sanctioned religious communities experience severe freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) violations, as indicated by the detentions of members of the Orthodox Church,
The arrests are relentless. At the start of this year, on 20 January, over 30 Evangelical Christians were arrested following a raid on a child’s birthday party in Asmara. Non-Evangelical attendees were permitted to leave as the authorities rounded up all Evangelical men in attendance and detained them in Asmara’s 6th Police Station. The women were told to report to the same station on 22 January, upon which they too were detained, along with any children who were with them.
It is believed the raid followed a tip-off from neighbours, something CSW sources report is becoming increasingly common. So pervasive is the repression by the Eritrean regime that some of its own citizens appear compelled to do its dirty work, perhaps fearing the consequences if they are found to have kept silent.
It has been nearly eight years since a United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry (COI) found ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that the government was responsible for widespread and systematic crimes against humanity, ‘namely enslavement, imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture, other inhumane acts, [religious and ethnic] persecution, rape and murder’. There is no evidence that the human rights situation has changed since the completion of the COI’s work, and no Eritrean official has been held to account for these crimes.
And yet today, Eritrea’s second term on the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) is just coming to an end. It is deeply lamentable that the nation was elected onto the Council two years after a COI mandated by the HRC had published its conclusions, and despite its steadfast refusal to engage in serious dialogue with the international community. The government continues to deny all UN mandate holders permission to visit the country, and it has made no effort to implement its commitments made during successive Universal Periodic Review (UPR) cycles to respect FoRB and other fundamental human rights.
Continued scrutiny of Eritrea’s human rights record therefore remains essential, not least at the HRC, which must renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the country at its upcoming 56th session. Eritrea must in turn be urged to co-operate fully with the Special Rapporteur, and condemned for its ongoing grave human rights violations and failure to abide by the standards and obligations expected of a member of the HRC.
There must also be consequences in the form of sanctions and accountability for a regime that has deprived innocent men of their freedom for 20 years.
As news emerges of the death of an elderly and unjustly detained church leader, it is clear such pressure cannot come soon enough.
By CSW’s Founder President Mervyn Thomas CMG
FoRB in Full 