Sweden halts deportations to Eritrea

The move comes following an email sent on Thursday to all police authorities in Sweden to not forcibly deport people to Eritrea.

“From what I understand the Migration Board is planning to stop these type of forced deportations. That’s why we’ve made this decision,” Sören Clerton, head of the border control unit with Sweden’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) told the TT news agency.

Clerton added that police have had talks with both the Migration Board and human rights group Amnesty about the situation in Eritrea.

According to Amnesty, Sweden is the only country in Europe that has continued to deport people to Eritrea in recent years.

“It’s a real problem that Sweden has made a faulty assessment of the risks in Eritrea,” Madelaine Seidlitz, a lawyer with Amnesty in Sweden, told TT.

In an Amnesty report due to be published later in May, the human rights group argues that refugees are viewed as criminals in Eritrea.

“Countless numbers of people have been imprisoned arbitrarily after having been arrested when they try to cross the border,” Amnesty writes, adding that people can be held for up to three years and that their family members can also be arrested.

Nearly all Eritreans who apply are granted asylum in Sweden, the TT news agency reports. The approval rate so far this year is 96 percent. But in some cases, applications are denied and people are deported back to Eritrea. In 2012, 19 people were deported and so far this year four people have been sent back, two of whom were forcibly deported.

Amnesty claims that Eritreans who seek asylum abroad are seen as traitors by the regime and risk being arrested and tortured upon their return.

“We’re looking at that question: is the fact that someone sought asylum in and of itself enough for them to be harmed? Hopefully, I’ll be able to have a ruling on the matter early next week,” Fredrik Beijer, acting general counsel with the Migration Board, told TT.

In the meantime, no one will be deported to Eritrea.

TT/The Local/dl

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Somali prime minister to face confidence vote in parliament

Somalia's prime minister is expected to face a vote of confidence next week, lawmakers said, and backers of the challenge said they were frustrated with the pace of political reform.

Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon Saaid heads a fledgling government Western capitals say is the best the strifetorn country has had for decades, determined to improve security, impose the rule of law and end corruption.

A vote against the prime minister could threaten the delicate recovery of a nation Western powers have long seen as a launchpad for militant Islam across east Africa and beyond, analysts said. One said Saaid was likely to survive, Reuters reports.

"(The government) vowed to tackle many things in the first six months but they have achieved nothing," said legislator Dahir Amiin. "The ministers just sit on their seats, they do not know what is going on."

Other lawmakers confirmed the motion had been filed and said a debate in the 275-seat chamber was expected on May 22.

The prime minister's office was not immediately available for comment. Saaid was a relative newcomer to politics when he was appointed in October last year and widely viewed as untainted by the clan rivalries that plague Somalia.

Amiin said about 100 parliamentarians backed the motion against the prime minister. He singled out what he said was the government's failure to pay the armed forces battling al Qaeda-linked militants as a key disappointment.

Tensions have also escalated between Mogadishu and the outlying regions over how much central power should be devolved to the provinces, in what analysts said boiled down to a struggle to control resources.

A vote of no confidence would be a blow to Somalia as it strives to shake off the tag of "failed state" after more than 20 years of civil war and anarchy.

"It would disrupt whatever progress has been made over the last eight months and hurt international confidence in Somalia," said Abdi Aynte, director of the Mogadishu-based Heritage Institute for Policy Studies think-tank.

That sentiment is echoed by Saaid's backers in the chamber.

"Our government is now recognized internationally. If the parliament starts dismantling it, the world will see us as chaotic," said lawmaker Khalif Mohamed.

A security analyst predicted the prime minister would survive the vote.

"The vote will fail," the analyst said. "This is not a massive rebellion in parliament, it is the first shot by MPs who are uneasy with the government's policy and approach."

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Ethiopia to begin diverting course of Blue Nile on Tuesday

Amid Egyptian concerns over water needs, Addis Ababa says it will begin diverting course of Blue Nile on Tuesday as part of Renaissance Dam project.

Ethiopia will on Tuesday begin diverting the course of the Blue Nile, one of the Nile River’s two major tributaries, as part of its project to build a new dam, Turkish news agency Anadolu reported.

The move, which was called "historic" by Ethiopian government spokesperson Bereket Simon, will outrage Egypt and Sudan, which are downstream, because it will negatively affect their water quotas, Anadolu added.

The Renaissance Dam is one of four dams that could be built along the Blue Nile, one of the two branches of the Nile River, which provides Egypt with around 60 percent of its annual 55 billion cubic metres of Nile water.

Egypt’s former minister of irrigation Nasreddin Allam said the move should have been predicted by the Egyptian government or at least monitored by satellites, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported on Tuesday.

According to Allam, Ethiopia brought forward its plan to divert the Blue Nile, which was scheduled to begin in September, to preempt a report by a committee of experts from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia - due at the end of May - on the impact of the Renaissance Dam on Egypt and Sudan.

On Monday, Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Gebre-Christos said the dam, which is under construction and will be able to store 84 million cubic metres of Nile water, would be used exclusively for power generation and would not reduce Egypt's share of Nile water. 

The under-construction Renaissance Dam has been a source of concern for the Egyptian government.

Egypt will need an additional 21 billion cubic metres of water per year by 2050, on top of its current 55 billion metres quota, to meet the water needs of a projected population of 150 million people, according to Egypt's National Planning Institute.

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Press Statement: Eritrea Rejects Amnesty International’s Wild Accusations

Eritrea rejects in the clearest of terms Amnesty International's wild accusations that it has "jailed at least 10,000 political prisoners."

Amnesty's transparently political assault on Eritrea is totally unsubstantiated, with the organization unable to back its claims with facts. It is hardly surprising that it admits that it does not "know the exact figure."

Amnesty claims that the prisoners are kept in "unimaginably atrocious conditions." Once again this merely reflects its own fanciful flights of imagination and is not based on credible evidence.

Amnesty's cynical manipulation of human rights does not only further erode its credibility but it is also a disservice to human rights and the thousands of concerned people who back its campaigns.

Amnesty International knows full well that Eritrea was born in a remarkable thirty year struggle for human rights. The consolidation of the human rights of the people of Eritrea in their diversity- ethnic and cultural groups, women, youth, children, the disabled- remains an overriding priority for the government and people of Eritrea.

Eritreans are the first to admit, and need no prompting to remind them, that they still have a long way to go to secure a life of dignity and prosperity for themselves in their young nation. By the same measure, they don't hesitate to strongly rebuff all those who abuse the vital cause of human rights in the pursuit of a political agenda aimed at undermining Eritrea's efforts at comprehensive nation-building.

Stepping boldly into the political, Amnesty International claims that "Twenty years on from the euphoric celebrations of independence, Eritrea is one of the most repressive, secretive and inaccessible countries in the world." Eritreans and the thousands of foreigners from all over the world who work and live in Eritrea cannot but wonder how far off the mark Amnesty chooses to be, as the sordid picture it paints resembles little to the reality.

Undeterred, Eritreans and their friends, not just in Eritrea, but all over the world will be participating this month "in euphoric celebrations of independence." Of course, Amnesty International will take no notice of these indicators of the Eritrean people's stance, smug in its self­ righteous belief that it can, with impunity, attack and denigrate a young nation, which despite many odds, manages to progress and improve the lives of its citizens. (Shabait)

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'Eritrea jails 10,000 political prisoners'

Amnesty International says ex-rebel government jails at least 10,000 political prisoners to 'silence dissent'.

Eritrea's hardline regime has jailed at least 10,000 political prisoners, many in "unimaginably atrocious conditions", rights group Amnesty International said in a report.

With political opposition banned, independent media quashed and religious minorities targeted, the ex-rebel government uses a system of underground cells and shipping containers to house the prisoners, the report released on Thursday said.

"The government has systematically used arbitrary arrest and detention without charge to crush all opposition, to silence all dissent, and to punish anyone who refuses to comply with the repressive restrictions it places on people's lives," said Claire Beston, Amnesty's Eritrea researcher.

The report says "at least 10,000" prisoners have "disappeared into secret and incommunicado detention" in the Horn of Africa nation, but warns it is impossible to know the exact figure.

The report was released ahead of Eritrea's celebrations of 20 years of independence on May 24, which followed an overwhelmingly vote by the people to split from Ethiopia after years of bitter war.

Eritrean rebels battled far better equipped Ethiopian troops -- backed first by the United States, then the Soviet Union -- for three decades until victory in 1991, which was followed by a referendum two years later.

A subsequent border conflict with Ethiopia from 1998-2000 still simmers, which analysts say Asmara uses as an excuse for its continued iron-rule.

"Twenty years on from the euphoric celebrations of independence, Eritrea is one of the most repressive, secretive and inaccessible countries in the world," Beston added.

Opposition parties are banned and anyone who challenges President Issaias Afeworki is jailed without trial, often in the harshest of conditions.

Reporters Without Borders lists Eritrea below North Korea as the worst country in the world for press freedom.

There was no immediate response from Asmara.

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Ethiopia’s regime moves 20 political prisoners to a remote location ahead of U.S. Secretary of State arrival in Addis Ababa

The Woyanne junta has moved 20 prominent political prisoners, including journalist Woubshet Taye, to a remote prison camp in southern Ethiopia yesterday. The families of the political prisoners were not notified before the prisoners were taken to a prison camp near the town of Zeway, 6 hours drive from Addis Ababa. They were surprised and shocked to find out that the prisoners were not in Kality any longer when they arrived this morning.

The political prisoners moved to the remote location ahead of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip to Ethiopia. This is further shameful evidence of the Obama Administration’s hypocrisy when it comes to human rights and democracy in Africa.

Source: http://www.ethiopianreview.net/index/?p=73048

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