CPJ, 31 others call for UN scrutiny of Eritrea’s human rights record
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 31 other non-governmental organizations in calling on the United Nations Human Rights Council to condemn grave human rights violations in Eritrea, including arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention of journalists, violations of the rights to a fair trial, torture, and extraterritorial attacks on critics.
Ahead of the Council’s forthcoming session, which opens on 16 June, the rights groups also called for an extension of the mandate of the independent U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea, which expires in July.
As of December 1, 2024, Eritrea remained the worst jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa, with 16 behind bars without charge or trial, according to CPJ’s latest annual global prison census. Of these, 13 have been in detention since 2000 or 2001.
In 2024, the Special Rapporteur Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker expressed concern about prolonged, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances in the Horn of Africa nation and described the imprisoned Eritreans as the “longest-detained journalists in the world.”