Intervention de Reporters sans frontières sur l'Erythrée au Conseil des droits de l'Homme

RSF a rappelé à cette occasion l’importance de renouveler le mandat du Rapporteur spécial et de la Commission d’enquête sur l’Erythrée, qui collecte de précieux renseignements sur la situation du pays. Les organisations ont demandé au Conseil d’exiger du gouvernement érythréen qu’il apporte des preuves de vie des détenus et qu’il libère les journalistes, prisonniers politiques et prisonniers de conscience.

"Human Rights Council 31st Session

Individual Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Eritrea (Oral Update)

14 March

Joint Oral Statement

The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project

Reporters Without Borders

Read by: Hélène Sackstein

Mr President,

On March 1st, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Eritrea assured the Council of his country's commitment to human rights and human dignity as a "top priority" and of its full engagement in the UPR process.

Reporters Without Borders and the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project are concerned by the gap between His Excellency’s description of the situation in his country and the systemic, widespread and grave human rights violations documented by the Special Rapporteur and the Commission of Enquiry on Eritrea.

We sincerely thank the Special Rapporteur for her continued attention to the plight of ordinary Eritreans who continue to flee in droves, including unaccompanied minors, as noted in this year’s oral update. They flee to avoid endless military service in a country where fundamental rights are inexistent, where there is no independent media and where the UPR recommendations are repeatedly ignored, a country where civil society activists and journalists are held incommunicado for years with no access to lawyers.

2 cases are emblematic: Dawit Isaak, a Swedish-Eritrean journalist, arrested and held incommunicado since 2001, and Seyoum Tsehaye, former head of national television, whose films on the independence struggle continue to be screened regularly on independence day while he languishes in jail. Their families and the families many others have not heard anything from their loved ones, nor do they know whether they are alive or dead.

We would like to ask the Special Rapporteur what, given her findings, are the priority issues she believes the international community and the government of Eritrea need to address to tackle the country’s damning human rights record.

We also urge the Council to renew the Special Rapporteur’s mandate, and to demand that the Government provide proof of life of those arrested and release all journalists, political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.

I thank you."

Pour en savoir plus sur la situation de la liberté de l'information en Erythrée, cliquez ici.