The Human Rights House Foundation and a group of NGOs call for the Human Rights Council in its 20th session, to adopt a resolution in support of the establishment of a UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Eritrea, and to request the High Commissioner for human rights to report to the Human Rights Council on the situation in Eritrea in its 21st session.
Eleven individuals remain in arbitrary detention since 2001; they are journalists and government officials who have expressed their support for the implementation of Eritrea’s ratified Constitution, and are detained incommunicado, without due legal process. Torture, arrests, killings and forced labour are common, and the situation of those detained is unknown. In Eritrea, thousands of people are arbitrarily detained in inhumane and degrading conditions, without trial. Charges include criticism of the Eritrean Government, refusal to undertake indefinite military service or belonging to a ‘wrong’ religious group. The charge of ‘disloyalty’ to the government is estimated as justifying the detention of 5,000 and 10,000 individuals. The high rate of imprisonment of journalists is accompanied by a prohibition of civil society in Eritrea, and a lack of independent domestic media.
Despite previous attempts by UN special procedures and other calls for action in the Human Rights Council, the human rights situation in Eritrea remains dire because the Eritrean government is not engaging with these mechanisms. Attempts have also been made at the regional level; the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ rights has passed two separate decisions which found that the Eritrean government is in violation of fundamental rights of the African Charter, calling for the release of government officials and for access to legal counsel for at least 18 journalists in arbitrary detention. The Eritrean government has ignored these decisions.
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