A colony for 50 years, federated , Unified to Ethiopia , in 1991's seceded after three decades of rebellion. Since 1998 Eritrea is at War, harboring proxy warriors especially the notorious Al- Shabab. Torture ,imprisonment , thousands fleeing, no religious freedom , the only university is closed, everybody is in the army, No Parliament, No election, No functioning institution, No free press & all living journalists are in prison. Eritrea is called the North Korea of Africa.
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
November 15, 2011 (ADDIS ABABA) – Human Rights Watch on Monday urged the new government in Egypt against deporting Eritrean asylum seekers, who are currently being detained in the North African country.
The international advocacy group said Egyptian authorities are preparing to forcibly return a group of 118 Eritreans, including recent deserters from the Eritrean Army; accusing Cairo of renewing the trend of mass deportations it exercised in 2008 and 2009.
In most cases, Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers upon return are immediately thrown into secret detention centers where they are subjected to severe torture and other inhuman treatment, the human rights group says.
The consequences are even harsher to returnees who escaped the country’s mandatory military service, which, according to law in the Red Sea nation obliges all citizens under the age of 50 to serve in the military indefinitely.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) research indicated that on 29 October 2011, security guards at the al-Shalal prison in Aswan beat the 118 men, including 40 who already have refugee status, forcing them to sign papers for their ’voluntary’ return to Eritrea.
HRW urged the Egyptian authorities to stop forcing detained Eritreans to sign repatriation forms and allow immediate access to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) so they can interview all detained Eritreans and identify the refugees among them.
"Detaining Eritreans and then beating them to force them to sign ’voluntary’ return papers can’t mask the fact that Egypt is about to commit refoulement, the forced return of refugees to likely persecution," said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher and advocate at Human Rights Watch.
"Instead of ripping up refugee law, ignoring UNHCR, and beating migrants and refugees, Egypt should protect them."
Egypt has in the past years forcibly returned thousands of Eritrean asylum seekers without considering their refugee claims. These acts breach international laws which forbid host nations from deporting asylum seekers to countries where they could face a serious risk of persecution upon return.
According to the rights group, Egyptian Interior Ministry officials over the past two months have also given Eritrean embassy officials access to detained Eritreans, including asylum seekers registered by UNHCR in other countries, to help prepare travel documents for their deportation.
“Allowing Eritrean diplomatic officials to visit detained Eritreans, including potential asylum seekers, means Egypt is violating the principle of confidentiality, essential to asylum procedures,” the group said.
The rights group further accused Egyptian authorities of blocking UN refugee agency access to detained migrants.
"By blocking UNHCR from visiting asylum seekers, the Egyptian government not only tramples on their right to seek asylum but disregards its own agreements," Simpson said.
"Egypt needs to reaffirm its agreement to protect asylum seekers and let the refugee agency interview them."
In protest to wide ranging oppression by dictatorial regime in Asmara, every month, hundreds of Eritreans flee home to neighboring countries, risking their lives to cross Eritrea’s heavily patrolled borders. Currently thousands of young Eritreans remain detained incommunicado without charge or trial for evading military conscription, in suspicion of opposition to government or for attempting to escape the country.
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(Geneva) – The Egyptian authorities are preparing to deport 118 detained Eritreans to Eritrea, where they risk persecution, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 29, 2011, guards at the al-Shalal prison in Aswan beat the 118 men, including 40 who already have refugee status, to force them to sign papers for their “voluntary” return to Eritrea, according to sources with access to the detainees.
Egypt should stop forcing detained Eritreans to sign repatriation forms and allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to interview all detained Eritreans to identify refugees among them, Human Rights Watch said. According to UNHCR, it has already registered 40 of the group as refugees in Sudan and Ethiopia. The renewed deportations signal a return to Egypt’s mass deportations of Eritreans in 2008and 2009, Human Rights Watch said.
“Detaining Eritreans and then beating them to force them to sign ‘voluntary’ return papers can’t mask the fact that Egypt is about to commit refoulement, the forced return of refugees to likely persecution,” said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher and advocate at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of ripping up refugee law, ignoring UNHCR, and beating migrants and refugees, Egypt should protect them.”
Eritrea, ruled by an extremely repressive government, requires all citizens under 50 to serve in the military indefinitely. Anyone of draft age leaving the country without permission is branded a deserter, risking five years in prison, often in inhumane conditions, as well as forced labor and torture. UNHCR considers that, in practice, the punishment for desertion or evasion is so severe and disproportionate that it constitutes persecution.
Human Rights Watch spoke with multiple credible sources with regular recent access to about 160 Eritrean men and women detained for the past month in al-Shalal prison in Egypt’s southern city of Aswan.
According to the sources, the detainees said that on October 26 an Eritrean embassy official visited them and asked why they had left Eritrea. He returned on October 29 with voluntary repatriation forms and told them they would all be photographed to help prepare travel documents. The detainees all refused to sign the forms.
One of the sources who spoke with all of the detainees said the prison guards then beat 118 of them, mostly young men, to force them to sign the voluntary return papers, though the 30 or so women and seven children were not forced to sign.
Some of the detainees told one of the sources that on November 9 an Egyptian immigration officer and an Eritrean official visited the prison with additional deportation documents, including “laissez passer” papers, indicating deportation is imminent.
Ten of the men are recent deserters from Eritrea’s military. They include two senior personnel – a colonel and a person responsible for the military’s radio service – the source said. The other eight are more junior personnel, two of whom worked in food distribution services in Eritrea’s infamous Sawa military camp.
The camp is the country’s main military training center and notorious for its use of torture to punish draft evaders and people trying to escape the country, as well as for its use of forced labor.
Under Egypt’s 1954 memorandum of understanding with the UN refugee agency, the agency is supposed to carry out all refugee status determination in Egypt. This means Egyptian officials are obliged to give UNHCR access to all detained migrants to identify those who want to claim their right to seek asylum from persecution.
In practice, Egyptian authorities often deny the UN refugee agency access to detained migrants. The Egyptian authorities have not allowed UNHCR to visit the detainees, the refugee agency told Human Rights Watch.
“By blocking UNHCR from visiting asylum seekers, the Egyptian government not only tramples on their right to seek asylum but disregards its own agreements,” Simpson said. “Egypt needs to reaffirm its agreement to protect asylum seekers and let the refugee agency interview them.”
According to credible sources, over the past two months Egyptian Interior Ministry officials have given Eritrean embassy officials access to detained Eritreans, including asylum seekers registered by UNHCR in other countries, to help prepare travel documents for deportation.
Human Rights Watch said that allowing Eritrean diplomatic officials to visit detained Eritreans, including potential asylum seekers, means Egypt is violating the principle of confidentiality, essential to asylum procedures.
According to reports by Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency, in October the Egyptian authorities announced that 111 Eritreans had “voluntarily” returned to their country after they had signed Eritrean embassy paperwork. Credible sources told Human Rights Watch that Eritrean Embassy officials had visited them in prison before they were deported.
The news agency reported on October 14 that two days earlier, Egypt had deported 50 Eritreans and that, on the same day, 32 Eritreans had “illegally entered the southern border of Egypt with the intention of making their way to Sinai to illegally enter Israel.”
UNHCR said that the Egyptian authorities denied UNHCR access to some of the deportees, in line with Egypt’s policy of generally denying the refugee agency access to detained migrants. In the case of migrants intercepted in Egypt’s eastern Sinai region, UNHCR says the authorities argue that legitimate refugees should try to register with UNHCR in Cairo instead of crossing the Sinai desert.
In June 2008, Egypt summarily returned to Eritrea up to 1,200 undocumented Eritreans who had entered Egypt from Sudan. In December 2008 and January 2009, Egypt forcibly returnedmore than 45 Eritrean asylum seekers to Eritrea.
Until the reports in October, Egypt had appeared to end the deportations, except for one UNHCR-recognized Sudanese refugee, Mohammed al-Haj Abdallah, on January 25, 2010.
Under the African Refugee Convention, asylum seekers have a right to seek asylum, regardless of how they enter a country or whether they have identity documents.International law forbids countries from forcibly returning asylum seekers without first allowing them to apply for asylum and considering their cases.
Both the Convention against Torture and the African Refugee Convention forbid Egypt from sending individuals to countries where they face a serious risk of persecution or torture. Egypt is also a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which, under article 13, prohibits arbitrary expulsion and entitles foreigners to an individual decision on their removal/expulsion. The UN Human Rights Committee has interpreted article 7 of the ICCPR to forbid refoulement – or forced return – of people to places where they would be at risk of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
Human Rights Watch said that no international agencies in Eritrea, including UNHCR, have been able to monitor the treatment of deported Eritreans once they are back in Eritrea. However, Eritrean refugees in various countries have told Human Rights Watch that Eritreans forcibly returned to their country are routinely detained and mistreated in detention.
UNHCR’s official Guidelines to States on the protection needs of Eritrean asylum seekers state that “[i]ndividuals of draft age who left Eritrea illegally may be perceived as draft evaders upon return, irrespective of whether they have completed active national service or have been demobilized,” and that “[t]he punishment for desertion or evasion is so severe and disproportionate such as to amount to persecution.”
TOM ODULA
Associated Press= NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Eritrea's ambassador to Kenya said Friday that there is no proof to back allegations that Eritrea supplied three planeloads of weapons to al-Qaida-linked militants in Somalia being pursued by the Kenyan army.
Beyene Russom told The Associated Press that it would be impossible for the small, East Africa country to supply weapons because it is under a U.N. arms embargo and is being monitored by the U.S. government and the U.N.
"We can't do that because it is a very complicated operation," Russom said. "We do not have the capacity to bring three planes in two days, crossing the airspace of Djibouti, crossing the Red Sea and entering the Indian Ocean and entering Somalia airspace, unloading and flying back in this highly militarized area."
The U.S. also has a military base in Djibouti, he said.
Kenya sent hundreds of troops into Somalia last month to pursue al-Shabab, the militants it blames for a string of kidnappings inside Kenya, which it says threaten the country's economy. Last week Kenya's foreign minister summoned Russom and raised concerns over the possibility that planes from Eritrea supplied militants with weapons.
Russom said the latest accusations fit into a pattern of misinformation against his country which he blames on Ethiopia — Eritrea's longtime foe.
Shortly after he arrived in Kenya in February, Russom said his office was accused of channeling funds to al-Shabab and using the ambassador's official car to ferry weapons. He said the accusations have not been proven despite his willingness to waive diplomatic immunity to allow investigations.
The allegations were published in a report by a group of U.N. experts monitoring the arms embargoes on Eritrea and Somalia. The report also accused Eritrea of involvement in the July 2010 suicide attacks on people watching the World Cup final in Uganda's capital Kampala in which 76 people were killed, he said. Though, according to him, Uganda has never accused Eritrea of involvement.
He said Eritrea does not object to Kenya's pursuit of al-Shabab militants in Somalia, but Eritrea is concerned about what will happen to Somalia after Kenya withdraws.
"Kenya has the opportunity to bring peace in Somalia, to bring all the Somalis together supported by the international community," he said. "Talking for two years is better than fighting for one day."
Russom said the accusations that Eritrea is supporting al-Shabab started after the country objected to Ethiopia's military invasion of Somalia in 2006 to fight the Islamic Courts Union.
The Islamic Courts Union was a Somali opposition group that attempted to restore order in Somalia. But the ICU's attempts at governance failed, and the group later gave rise to al-Shabab.
Warlords overthrew longtime dictator Siad Barre in 1991, plunging the country into anarchy.
Russom said Eritrea wanted Somalis to find peace through discussions and compromise and that was its reason for opposing Ethiopia's invasion. He said Ethiopia sees a united Somalia as a threat because it is afraid the country will support ethnic Somali rebels in the Ogaden region in Ethiopia's south.
In late 2009, the U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo and other tough sanctions against Eritrea for supplying weapons to al-Shabab and refusing to resolve a border dispute with neighboring Djibouti, a key U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa.
Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war. It has been feuding over its border with Ethiopia ever since, and uncertainty over its border with the tiny port nation of Djibouti led to hostilities between the countries in the 1990s.
In June 2008, the Security Council condemned Eritrea for launching an attack against Djibouti. The council called for a cease-fire and urged the two countries to withdraw their forces from the border. Djibouti did withdraw, but Eritrea has not.
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