Eritrea

Since 1993 the country’s regime, under the leadership of President Afewerki, has become synonymous with absolute authoritarianism and is doing everything to maintain its power. Christians have been arrested, harassed and killed because they are considered agents of the West and therefore a threat. Many Christians have fled. Others have been held in miserable prison conditions for years or kept in shipping containers in scorching temperatures. Evangelicals and Pentecostals have been at particular risk since a 2002 law was passed prohibiting Churches other than the Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Churches, and also Sunni Islam. Meanwhile the Eritrean Orthodox Patriarch Abune Antonios has been under house arrest since 2007.

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UN ‘failing’ Eritrea’s detained Christians

March 16, 2018 Abune Antonios, Asmara, East Africa, Eritrea, Human rights, Pentecostals, Religious freedom

Eritrea’s human rights record was again in the spotlight at the UN Human Rights Council earlier this week. Kate Gilmore, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in her opening remarks that over 100 people were arrested in Eritrea in 2017 for practising religions not officially recognised by the state. […]

Eritrea government closes Church-run initiatives

January 19, 2018 Asmara, Catholics, Eritrea, Mussie Zerai

Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Cathedral in Asmara, Eritrea. (Photo: David Stanley)

In a further clampdown on religious groups in Eritrea, the government is closing all social initiatives run by the Catholic Church. Mussie Zerai, an Eritrean priest now living in Italy, told Catholic news agency Fides that in the last few months the government closed five Catholic health clinics and has […]

Eritrea: mental health challenges for Christian man freed after 13 years in prison

January 16, 2018 Asmara, Barentu, Eritrea, Eritrean Orthodox Church, Prisons, Religious freedom, Seventh-day Adventists

Eritrea remains “one of the worst examples of state-sponsored repression of freedom of religion or belief in the world”, says USCIRF Commissioner. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Shiden* was young and full of optimism for the future when he was imprisoned for his Christian faith. For the next 13 years he was exposed to torture of different kinds, including months in a very small cell in solitary confinement, and even his eventual release failed to bring about […]

Eritrea patriarch’s public appearances ‘a marketing exercise’

December 12, 2017 Abune Antonios, Eritrea, Eritrean Orthodox Church

Abune Antonios, Patriarch, Eritrean Orthodox Church

Public appearances of Abune Antonios, head of the Eritrean Tewahedo Orthodox Church, are “a marketing exercise to polish the face of the government”, according to advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide. There has been “no significant improvement” in the patriarch’s circumstances, despite attempts to give the impression of progress, CSW said, […]

Refugees call for African Union to stop Eritrea’s ‘reign of terror’

November 17, 2017 African Union, Eritrea, Human rights, Pentecostals, Religious freedom

Approximately 250 Eritreans took part in a protest in Addis Ababa ear. (Photo: Getty Images)

Eritrean refugees and representatives of the opposition living in Ethiopia staged a protest at the African Union headquarters in the capital, Addis Ababa, earlier this week to call for an end to Eritrea’s “reign of terror”. The approximately 250 protestors handed a petition to the Chairperson of the African Union […]

Eritrean Christians told to remove crosses as schools forced to go public

November 3, 2017 Abune Antonios, Asmara, Catholics, Education, Eritrea, Pentecostals, Religious freedom

People running in the streets of Asmara while gun shots can be heard.

Eritrea’s security forces shot at protesters, using live ammunition, in the capital Asmara on Tuesday (31 October) during a protest against the government’s plans to turn all schools public. This would mean forbidding students from wearing religious items such as Christian crosses or Muslim headscarves. A local source told World […]

Call for Eritrea’s ‘black Tuesday’ to be day of prayer

September 18, 2017 Abune Antonios, Eritrea, Eritrean Orthodox Church, Pentecostals

If they're not Lutheran, evangelical women in Eritrea have to pray together in secret. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Eritrean Christians are calling for 18 September to be a special day of prayer and fasting, marking the Tuesday in September 2001 when the government began a clampdown on rights campaigners and journalists. “That was the day rights and freedoms were curtailed and comprehensive repression began in earnest in Eritrea,” said […]

Eritrean Christian mother’s ‘isolation’ after church-leader husband imprisoned

September 15, 2017 Children, East Africa, Eritrea, Pentecostals, Women

World Watch Monitor reported a month ago how a mother of three, Fikadu Debesay, died in a desert camp where she had been imprisoned together with her husband. Their crime? Belonging to a non-sanctioned church in Eritrea. Like Debesay, Ruth is in her late 30s, has three children, and although not […]

Eritrea: imprisoned Christian mother dies, as arrests continue

August 15, 2017 Adi Quala, Asmara, Eritrea

Just last month in October the only Anglican priest in Eritrea, Rev Nelson Fernandez of St George’s Episcopal Church in Asmara was ordered to leave the country.

An Eritrean Christian mother of three has died at the desert camp where she and her husband had been held since May. They were two of an estimated 210 Christians rounded up in the past three months for belonging to non-sanctioned churches. Fikadu Debesay and her husband lived in the […]

Eritrean Patriarch’s first appearance in decade dismissed as ‘fig leaf’

July 21, 2017 Abune Antonios, Asmara, Eritrea, Eritrean Orthodox Church

A brief public appearance from the Eritrean Orthodox Patriarch after ten years under house arrest has been dismissed as a “fig leaf” to cover over the regime’s “appalling human rights record”. Patriarch Abune Antonios participated in a Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral in the capital, Asmara, on Sunday (16 July), […]

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