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Although the Eritrean constitution guarantees freedom of speech and press, Eritrea has been ranked as one of the worst countries in terms of freedom of the press. [1] As of 2004 [update] , the press in Eritrea under the government led by Isaias Afwerki remained tightly controlled. [2]
The Eritrean Government passed several laws to limit press freedom in its country. In 1996, a law was passed banning media broadcasts and journalists, who now need licenses to be able to work. In 2001, all independent media were banned, [3] leaving state media as the sole alternative. Furthermore, among limitations, "media publications must be submitted for government approval prior to release" according to Freedom House. [4]
Since 2001, several journalists were arrested without any charges according to the committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), including 17 journalists who were imprisoned in Eritrea as of 1 December 2015. Among the most recent imprisonments, in 2011 four journalists [5] working for the government radio and television station (Dimtsi Hafash) were arrested and imprisoned. There is no information on the condition of those imprisoned; many are believed to have died since, even though there is in either case no confirmation. In 2014, lawyers tried to press Swedish courts to investigate crimes against humanity, torture, and abduction, because of the imprisonment of the Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak according to the committee to Protect Journalist. Eritrean authorities refused to cooperate and the case was closed. While there have been reports that Isaak died in detention in 2011, this has not been confirmed, and other reports claim that he may be alive in 2015.
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The majority of journalists have fled Eritrea due to the intimidation and arbitrary imprisonment. Furthermore, the journalists who have remained abide and engage in self-censorship. However, in 2013, a dissident group began creating and circulating an underground newspaper, Echoes of Forto, in Asmara. The newspaper is written by a team based both inside and outside the country. The disagreeing group described the paper as a pilot project, and hoped to expand it.
Radio Erena, both run by Eritrean activists and Reporters Without Borders from Paris, was launched in 2009. It can be accessed through the internet, satellite, and a "call-to-listen" platform. Although Eritrea has one of the lowest internet infiltration rates in the world, at around 1 percent, the government still makes an effort to block many websites managed by Eritrean exiles. It is believed that authorities monitor e-mail communications and some users suspect that government informants track users' activity in internet cafés.
As of 2004 [update] , foreign journalists were not accepted in Eritrea unless they were willing to report positively about the country and its politics. [2] Several journalists have entered the country undercover and on rare occasions the Eritrean president accepted to do interviews for TV channels such as Al-Jazeera or Sweden TV. However, in 2013, the Eritrean government blocked Al-Jazeera for two weeks because of its coverage of demonstrations in front of the country's embassies in different cities such as London, Rome, and Stockholm.
Following laws passed censoring media and press, many journalists have been detained since 2001.
Dawit was a teacher and journalist who was imprisoned without any charges in 2001. [6] He was considered by his former colleagues at the newspaper Echo as a talented, critical and hard worker. He co-founded an independent newspaper, Meqaleh, where he wrote critical articles in his regular column Never too late. He was soon detained by the police at the school where he worked. According to Reporters Without Borders, Dawit died in prison in 2010 with the magazine's editor Matios Habteab. [7]
Dawit Isaak is a Swedish-Eritrean journalist and writer who was imprisoned in 2001 by the Eritrean government without trial. His first job in Eritrea was as a reporter for the country's first independent newspaper, Setit.
He was arrested at his home in Asmara. In April 2002, CPJ reported that Dawit had to be hospitalized due to torture. In November 2005 he was released from jail, but two days after that he was imprisoned again. Rumors about his death have circulated several times, but it is not known if he is still alive or he is dead. [8]
He was a poet, circus performer and short story writer. According to Aaron Berhane, Yohannes was known to be amicable, friendly and reliable. Along with other editors of Eritrea, Yohannes was arrested on September 23, 2001, at his home. There are statements that he died in 2006 or 2007, due to health problems. [7]
Idris Abu’Are was a critical thinker who public readings and seminars on the history of the Eritrean independence. After 1991, Abu’Are worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and regularly contributed to the government-run daily newspaper Eritrea al-Haditha. [7]
Idris became very critical of the ministry, and later he worked for the newspaper Tsigenay and published a collection of short stories in 1992. However, he was blacklisted by the government for his ideas and was arrested in October 2001. He is married and has one daughter and he remains in prison. [7]
On February 9, 2009, Yirgalem Fisseha Mebrahtu was arrested with about 30 other people in the radio station building; she was the only woman among those arrested. [9] [10] She was accused of having ties to foreign media; other arbitrary charges included allegedly plotting to assassinate the President and belittling politicians. [11] She spent the first two years in solitary confinement in Mai Swra prison, where she was also tortured. [12] [13]
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exercised freely. Such freedom implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state; its preservation may be sought through the constitution or other legal protection and security. It is in opposition to paid press, where communities, police organizations, and governments are paid for their copyrights.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists. The American Journalism Review has called the organization, "Journalism's Red Cross." Since the late 1980s CPJ has been publishing an annual census of journalists killed or imprisoned in relation to their work.
Shi Tao is a Chinese journalist, writer and poet, who in 2005 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for releasing a document of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to an overseas Chinese democracy site. Yahoo! China was later discovered to have facilitated his arrest by providing his personal details to the Chinese government. Yahoo! was subsequently rebuked by a panel of the U.S. Congress, settled a lawsuit by Shi's family out of court, and pledged to reform its practices.
There are no current independent mass media in Eritrea. All media outlets in Eritrea are from the Ministry of Information, a government source.
The CPJ International Press Freedom Awards honor journalists or their publications around the world who show courage in defending press freedom despite facing attacks, threats, or imprisonment. Established in 1991, the awards are administered by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, non-governmental organization based in New York City. In addition to recognizing individuals, the organization seeks to focus local and international media coverage on countries where violations of press freedom are particularly serious.
Dawit Isaak is a Swedish-Eritrean playwright, journalist and writer who has been held in prison in Eritrea since 2001 without trial and is considered a traitor by the Eritrean government. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience and has called for his immediate and unconditional release. For years, he was the only Swedish citizen held as a prisoner of conscience. As of 2023, he is considered to be one of the world's longest continuously detained journalists.
There are over ten different languages in the Israeli media, with Hebrew as the predominant one. Press in Arabic caters to the Arab citizens of Israel, with readers from areas including those governed by the Palestinian National Authority. During the eighties and nineties, the Israeli press underwent a process of significant change as the media gradually came to be controlled by a limited number of organizations, whereas the papers published by political parties began to disappear. Today, three large, privately owned conglomerates based in Tel Aviv dominate the mass media in Israel.
Fesshaye Yohannes was an Eritrean journalist who founded the weekly journal Setit and was a recipient of the Committee to Protect Journalists' 2002 International Press Freedom Award. Fesshaye was imprisoned without charges in September 2001, and died in government custody.
Mashallah Shamsolvaezin is an Iranian newspaper and magazine publisher who edited many of post-revolutionary Iran's first and most widely circulated independent newspapers, including Kayhan, Jame'eh, Neshat, and Asr-e Azadegan. He currently serves as the spokesman for the Iranian Committee for the Defense of Freedom of the Press, and also as vice president of the Association of Iranian Journalists. A recipient of the 2000 CPJ International Press Freedom Award, Shamsolvaezin has been imprisoned multiple times for his journalistic activities. On June 29, 2014, he was charged with "propaganda against the state" and banned from leaving Iran. As of July 2014, he is on bail.
Dawit Kebede is an Ethiopian journalist and winner of the 2010 CPJ International Press Freedom Award.
Paul Kamara is a Sierra Leonean journalist, football manager, and cabinet minister.
Thaung Tun is a Burmese editor, filmmaker, and poet. He was imprisoned from October 1999 to January 2007 after releasing videos that exposed the harsh conditions in his country. While in prison he received an International Press Freedom award.
Aung Pwint is a Burmese journalist and documentary maker notable for his 1999 imprisonment by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Burma's military government, on charges of fax-machine ownership and "sending news".
Eiraeiro is a secret prison in Eritrea. Most sources give the location of Eiraeiro as being situated near the village of Gahtelay, in the Northern Red Sea Region. However, in an article in the Guardian, Eiraeiro is cited as being located approximately 10 miles from the capital, Asmara.
Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández is a Cuban journalist who was imprisoned by the Cuban government from 1999–2001. His imprisonment attracted protest from several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, which named him a prisoner of conscience.
Temesgen Desalegn is an Ethiopian journalist. As an editor of the independent weekly newspaper Feteh, Desalegn went to court many times and was imprisoned from 2014 to 2017 as a result of his criticism of the national government, drawing protests on his behalf from the international press freedom groups Committee to Protect Journalists and Article 19 and from Amnesty International. In its 2014 report, the U.S. Department of State also reported its concern against Temsgen's 3 years sentence by the government, emphasizing that Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are fundamental elements of a democratic society and government. The Human Rights Watch also reported his charge in August 2012 and his three years sentence in 2014.
Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, an Egyptian photojournalist, was arrested for taking photos of the Rabaa massacre in Cairo, Egypt and imprisoned during the post-coup unrest by the Egyptian government since 2013, where he faced the death penalty. By September 2018 he had been sentenced to a five-year prison term and was expected to be released shortly thereafter; he was released on 4 March 2019.
Afrah Nasser is an independent Yemeni journalist, living in exile in Sweden since 2011. Her reporting on Yemen's political affairs has been published in international publications including the Huffington Post, CNN, Al Jazeera English and The National. In 2015 Arabian Business listed Nasser as the 15th most powerful Arab under 40.
Freedom of the press in China refers to the journalism standards and its freedom and censorship exercised by the government of China. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China guarantees "freedom of speech [and] of the press" which the government, in practice, routinely violates with total impunity, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Yirgalem Fisseha Mebrahtu is an Eritrean poet, writer and journalist. In 2009, she was arrested by the Eritrean government and imprisoned. Since 2018, she has been living in exile in Munich with the support of the PEN Center Germany.
