Eritrea

Article

The culture is in the hands of those who toe the line

Biased and centrally controlled news reporting, poor professional knowledge, endemic resignation amongst journalists and misleading directives—this is how author and journalist Abraham T. Zere...

Text: Abraham T. Zere April 08 2015

Editorial

The third condition of freedom

Food or morals? This Brecht quote and dilemma underlies the discussion about the freedom of speech and other human...

Text: Ola Larsmo April 08 2015

Article

The price of being a journalist in Eritrea

Being a journalist in Eritrea means risking your life every day. Here, the pseudonym Mussie Hadgu writes about what made him become a journalist. “The crimes I witnessed shook me to the core, and I...

Text: Mussie Hadgu April 08 2015

Article

Soon five thousand days in prison

On 2 June, it will be exactly 5,000 days since the imprisonment of Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak. A quarter of his life has gone to waste. Here, Esayas Isaak writes about his brother.

Text: Esayas Isaak April 08 2015

Poetry

My Eritrea

Poet and journalist Haile Bizen is known in his native Eritrea by the epithet “the man who broke the silence”. He was forced to flee the country after repeated persecution and systematic interrogation...

Text: Haile Bizen April 08 2015

Article

The struggle is between the power of politics and the power of information

In 2001, mass protests broke out in Eritrea after a number of top officials and members of President Isaias Afewerki’s party publicly criticised his autocratic rule and failure to implement democratic...

Text: Tesfalem Habte April 08 2015

Article

Underground journalism in Eritrea

Eritrea has long languished at the bottom of Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index. Despite this, many journalists risk their lives to report on what is happening in the country. One of...

Text: Stefanos Temolso April 08 2015

Interview

“You can’t wake up someone who pretends to be asleep”—about Eritrea’s future

January saw the release on bail of six journalists from the radio station Bana in Eritrea. They had been behind bars since 2009, when the government launched a large-scale raid on journalists. Brendan...

Text: Brendan de Caires April 08 2015

Poetry

Nights and days

On September 23 ten years had passed since the Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak and his colleagues at the Eritrean newspaper Seitit was imprisoned by the Afwerki regime. Today he is being held at the...

Text: Lars Mikael Raattamaa September 23 2011

Poetry

To Dawit Isaak

Dawit Isaak was imprisoned in Eritrea on September 23, 2001. After 18 years, he’s still being held behind bars in one of the world's most uncompromising dictatorships, without being the subject of any...

Text: Ida Börjel September 23 2011