Eritrea blocks Al Jazeera

The Eritrean government has blocked Al Jazeera channel in the country, Al Sharq reported yesterday. The ban comes in the wake of reports that were aired by the Doha-based news network about dissident soldiers that seized the Eritrean information ministry in January.

In solidarity with the soldiers, Eritreans staged protests in front of their embassies in Cairo, Rome, London as well as the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa. 

“This (ban) is a reaction to coverage of protests against the Eritrean government that were carried out in different parts of the world,” according to the Arabic daily. 

The Eritrean information ministry blocked all Al Jazeera channels and issued a decree that prevents anyone in the country from giving access to the news channel to the public. 

“The ruling was sent to all government institutions as well as public places such as hotels, restaurants and cafes in different towns and villages,” the report said. 

Earlier yesterday, The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani sent a written message to the Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki pertaining to the bilateral relations of both countries, QNA reported.

The Peninsula

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Eritrean President Receives Written Message from Qatari Premier

Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki received a written message from the Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Shaikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani pertaining to bilateral relations.

The letter was handed over by the Qatari Ambassador to Eritrea Mohammed bin Isa Al-Mannai to the Political Advisor to the Eritrean President Yemane Ghebreab.

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Reverse the exodus from Eritrea

By Dan Connell

LAST WEEK, soldiers in one of Africa’s most closed and repressive nations — Eritrea — occupied the country’s Ministry of Information and issued demands. The pattern was a familiar one. News spread quickly that a coup was underway.

But feisty little Eritrea, which got its independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after defeating successive US- and Soviet-backed armies in a 30-year war, has never fit the mold of postcolonial African states, and it was not doing so now.

In a country where chatting about politics at open-air cafés can get you arrested, this was the only way people with a grievance could get attention and survive: in a large group with guns. Their point was to start a national conversation where none was allowed. And they did.

The government at first admitted an “incident,” then denied anything had happened, while Eritrea’s global diaspora lit up the Internet with debates and celebrations. One group placed 10,000 robo-calls to Eritrea’s capital, Asmara, urging people on; thousands of protesters in London, Stockholm, Rome, Berlin, and Washington this week picketed or occupied Eritrea’s embassies to show support.

The soldiers who occupied the information ministry were fed up with their dictatorship and wanted everyone to know it. So they marched into the state-run TV studios — there are no private media — and broadcast a call for implementation of a constitution ratified 16 years ago but still gathering dust, and the release of political prisoners, of which there are as many as 10,000. Then they went back to their barracks. Arrests followed, but the message was out.

Many commentators called this a “failed coup,” but they missed the point. The protesters were not asking for power, just a crack in the wall, the payoff the entire society has been waiting for over the past half century of sacrifice and struggle, which the leader of their independence movement, Isaias Afwerki, is denying them. And they are not going to stay quiet any longer.

Tens of thousands have fled a tyrannical regime often compared to North Korea: Eritrea has one political party; no national elections, ever; no organizations not controlled by the state, including religious denominations; no independent media; no space for raising any questions about government policies. Yet when Eritreans escape, usually at great personal risk, they often find themselves treated like criminals — or just turned away.

The worst off are the victims of a human trafficking ring in which refugees are kidnapped from camps in Sudan and taken to the Egyptian Sinai, where Bedouin criminal gangs torture them during phone calls to relatives while forcing them to beg for ransoms as high as $30,000. One I spoke with in Tel Aviv recently, a 28-year-old former computer programmer, had lost all use of his badly disfigured hands after being hung from them for weeks while awaiting payments.

There is only one solution for this global human rights crisis: a change in the situation in Eritrea so the exodus can be reversed, not simply blocked or rerouted.

What is needed — and what these courageous young protesters are calling for — is a constitutional framework for a transition to democracy and the release of those detained for simply voicing their yearning for it. Only Eritreans can bring this about, but there are things we could do to lessen the suffering of the victims of this tyranny while helping them stand up to it.

The first is vigorous action to halt the trafficking of Eritreans in the Egyptian Sinai. This is complicated by treaty obligations arising from the 1978 pact with Israel that limit Egypt’s military presence, as well as by Egypt’s unsettled political environment. But the presence of a multinational force with a strong American component would give us a wedge to tackle this.

Meanwhile, borrowing a page from the anti-apartheid campaigns of the 1980s, we should pressure international mining companies now throwing a lifeline to the regime to suspend operations until basic rights are extended to the population and the government demonstrates that the mines are not worked by unpaid conscript labor, as a Human Rights Watch report alleged last month. Eritreans will take care of the rest.

Source: The Boston Globe

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Peer accuses UK of aiding Eritrean government

Labour peer and former Foreign Office minister Baroness Kinnock has demanded an explanation of why the UK "facilitated meetings between the Eritrean government and a range of mining and investment companies".

Lady Kinnock wanted to know if the government had been helping an administration she called "one of the most secretive and repressive regimes in the whole world".

Foreign Office Minister Baroness Warsi admitted such a meeting was "not something I'm aware of" and said Lady Kinnock was "more well-informed than I am on this issue" but promised to write to her.

The issue was first raised at questions on 30 January 2013 by Lib Dem Lord Chidgey, vice-chair of the all-party group on Africa.

Lord Chidgey said the appointment of Ethiopia's new prime minister as chair of the African Union represented "shifting political ground" and an opportunity to "unlock the security stalemate" between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The Bishop of Wakefield added it was a chance to "reset and promote regional reforms".

Lady Warsi told peers the situation in Mali and Algeria "shows the importance of stable government" and stressed that Eritrea and Ethiopia "should continue to speak".

There is a fragile peace in the one-party state of Eritrea following decades of fighting with Ethiopia and Yemen.

In late January, state television was temporarily taken off air when dissident soldiers reportedly stormed the ministry of information, calling for the implementation of the country's 1997 constitution.

The Eritrean ambassador to South Africa told news agencies there was no sign of a coup.

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FIRST INTERVIEW WITH ERITREA’S ALI ABDU: INFORMATION MINISTER CONFIRMS: HAS LEFT THE REGIME

Expressen newspaper interview translated by Google Translate from Swedish, 30 January 2013

Ali Abdu

BEIRUT. Eritrean dictator Isaias Afewerkis Information Minister Ali Abdu Ahmed has fled the country and is living today in a secret location.

It confirms himself today in a world exclusive interview with Expressen Kassem Hamade.

Ali Abdu says he is surprised that the Swedish authorities did not seek him for information about what happened to the imprisoned journalist Dawit Isaak.

But he dare not give any hope to Isaak’s family in Sweden.

Neither I nor any other minister dared to ask what happened to Isaak says Ali Abdu.

Eritrea’s information minister, Ali Abdu, 47, disappeared without a trace during a business trip to Germany in november.

Since then, not a sign of life heard from the Minister, who has been one of the dictator Isaias Afewerkis closest men for many years.

Now confirm Ali Abdu himself for the first time that he has fled Eritrea and left the regime.

He chooses to do it in an interview with Expressen.

Living on secret location

Ali Abdu live today at a secret location. He dares not speak on the phone with journalists, so he responds to Expressen questions via his brother Saleh Younis, who lives in the U.S..

Ali Abdu says that he very well knows who Dawit Isaak is.

- I’m surprised that Sweden has not heard from himself than to me to ask questions about Isaak. No one from the Swedish government or authorities have been trying to contact me about Dawit Isaak, says Ali Abdu told Expressen.

In Dawit Isaak’s family in Sweden and among the thousands who committed his release brought the news that Ali Abdu dropped out of the hope that they will finally get an answer about Dawit Isaak still alive.

But Ali Abdu says he and the other ministers do not have to know anything about what happened Dawit and other imprisoned journalists and politicians.

- Neither I nor any other minister dared to ask what happened to Dawit Isaak. It is taboo to ask about things that are not related to one’s job to do. There is an old guerrilla culture in the country. It carries out orders without asking why, he says.

“Can oral orders”

Ali Abdu says it is routine to suspected dissidents arrested without court papers, without any documentation.

- Those who do the work, oral orders. Sometimes, there is over the phone and in coded language. They are afraid of being intercepted by Western intelligence services, he says.

He says he is sorry about what happened Dawit Isaak and other journalists.

- But it is only the president himself and his closest security that has information about Isaak. Not even the police chief know anything about it, he says.

Ali Abdu live under great pressure. Immediately after his defection in November arrested his father, his 15 year old daughter and his brother, who were all left in Eritrea, the Security Service. He says he does not know where they are kept under lock and key today.

He does not want to answer questions about what prompted him to drop out or how he lives today.

- My brother is in shock right now. He is sad and feeling disappointed at how an entire generation in Eritrea has been lost, says the renegade minister brother Saleh Younis.

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Hadas Eritrea January 26-29, 2013

Hadas Eritrea January 29, 2013

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Hadas Eritrea January 28, 2013

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Hadas Eritrea January 27, 2013

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Hadas Eritrea January 26, 2013

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