Human Rights Violations in Eritrea: Jehovah’s Witnesses Among the Most Affected Minorities
Raffaella Di Marzio
Recently, News Agency Dire has reported on serious violations of human rights in Eritrea, especially affecting Jehovah’s Witnesses. The case of Saron Ghebru, arrested despite being six months pregnant, is emblematic, but many other equally serious cases are mentioned.
The “crime” committed by these citizens is simply that of being Jehovah’s Witnesses and, for males, their refusal of military service, without the option of carrying out an alternative civilian service. This decision was made by the Eritrean government with a decree issued in 1994, in which Jehovah’s Witnesses were required to register for military training to complete the 12th grade of the country’s school system. Following this decision, many Jehovah’s Witnesses have been arrested and detained as conscientious objectors.
This worrying violation of human and civil rights has been perpetrated for decades in Eritrea. On October 25, 2024, it will be 30 years since the signing of a presidential decree by the Eritrean government that deprived the Witnesses of all civil rights, including citizenship, the possibility to obtain documents showing their identity, to work in government offices, to receive a business license, or to find employment. All of that simply because they wish to peacefully practice their faith, which includes conscientious objection to the unlimited armed military service imposed by the government. To date, 64 Jehovah’s Witnesses, including 35 men and 29 women, are in prison in Eritrea, in inhumane conditions. As repeatedly denounced by human rights bodies, a violent and systematic repression of fundamental civil freedoms and personal rights is taking place in the country.
Among the most important organizations that have spoken out on this issue is USCIRF, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, independent and bipartisan, established in 1998 with the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). In the 2024 Annual Report, it added Eritrea among the countries on the Special Watch List which includes the CPCs (Countries of Particular Concern) nations, in which religious freedom is violated in a “particularly severe” and illegal way. According to IRFA standards, the violations of these nations are “systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious. These include torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment, prolonged detention without charges, abduction or clandestine detention, and other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons” (USCIRF Report 2024 p. 1-2).
In the part dedicated to Eritrea (Report 2024, pp. 28-29) USCIRF states that “throughout the year, the Eritrean government particularly targeted Jehovah’s Witnesses”. As for the situation in prisons, the conditions of those detained are very bad both for lack of care and for the violence suffered and continuous intimidation. “The government punished families of those who evade military service by evicting them from their homes and denying them food and other basic necessities, especially for women and children”.
After outlining the situation in Eritrea, USCIRF recommends that the United States “reestablish the 2021 arms embargo, reimpose targeted sanctions on Eritrean government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom, reconsider or bar the entry into the United States of those individuals, engage with the Eritrean government to end religious persecution of unregistered religious communities, grant full citizenship right to Jehovah’s Witnesses and release the remaining detainees held on account of their religious activities” (2024 Report, p. 28).
