2020-Eritrean Prisoneres’ List

Read the entire list in PDF format here:  Eritrean prisoners’ list: 2020

On 17 July 1991, barely seven weeks after liberation day, state security arrested Mohammed Maranet and took him to an undisclosed location, not to be heard from again. Thus began the plight of one family in Keren for which the dark side of our post-Independence reality unfolded much sooner than for many of us.

Nearly 30 years on, his children, now grown up men and women, and their bereaved mother, are still waiting for answers.

Mohammed Maranet, born on the banks of Anseba river in a village north of Keren, was a teacher at Keren Ma’had, the Islamic school attached to the main mosque, from 1970 to 1985. Thereafter, and up to the day of his disappearance, he served as a judge (qadi) in Keren, Ghindae and Agordat.

Maranet was not new to incarceration. In 1969, in his final year as a student, he was arrested at the main bus station in Keren, moments after receiving a letter from the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) secretly
delivered to him. He was subsequently sentenced to 1 year in prison which he spent at ‘Karsheli’ in Asmara.

Mohammed Maranet ––Teacher, judge.

Abducted by the Isaias regime on 17/07/1991 and still missing

THE FIRST ERITREAN PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE AFTER INDEPENDENCE

Following his release, he continued his ELF work in the town and soon after became a key organizer of ELF’s underground activities in Keren. He was once again arrested in December 1973 together with scores of other members of ELF’s clandestine cells in the city (mostly Keren Secondary School students). The arrested received varying prison sentences, the harshest of which was reserved for Maranet, who was sentenced to 5 years in prison with hard labor. He was set free when the EPLF1 entered Keren in July 1977, after serving three and a half years of his prison term. Mohammed Maranet is one of thousands of Eritreans languishing in the dictator’s jails without any charges being brought against them. Their families do not know their whereabouts or whether they are alive.

Read the entire list in PDF format here:  Eritrean prisoners’ list: 2020