Human Rights in Eritrea – Facts And Fiction

There are contradictions in the ground: PFDJ horrors Versus Claims Of Human Rights Respect Propaganda all-around. 

 

Honestly, I am not a fan of the Regime and do not entertain wasting my time reading or watching its propaganda outlets but it just happened as I was surfing the web I have been lured by Awate’s Front Page posting (UN human rights council: Review of Eritrea (Video) ) about an international conference which linked me to the PFDJ’s contribution to the said conference. I took the bait unfortunately, and there I was watching a video web cast in which a certain Dr. Ghirmay was speaking in the name of the tyrannical Regime in Asmara. I could not help but wonder at the lowly level of deception and fraud religiously adhered to by the Regime and its shameless functionaries who have sold their souls to the Lucifer from Tsolot and have thus degraded themselves to be agents of the Dictator and mouthpieces to his lies and cover-ups to his endless crimes if they are not actually by themselves accomplices in their own merit. Shame on those who live upon the misery and the suffering of their own people! As I continued to listen to the fanciful fairy tales and verbal wizardry and fantasies of the PFDJ paper as read by the head of the Regime’s delegation an old proverb which I learned from my parents, may God have mercy upon them, struck my mind: – “ Endabboy jahra draromsia, shaw’ate mogogo yeAgdummo  –  tsomom yehadru!” Also another pertinent saying befiting the situation on hand would be: –  “kab ba’al afsia,  b’aal taaf.” As a matter of fact that will be our subtitle for the next couple of paragraphs if you don’t mind. 

 

Kab ba’al afsia,  b’a’al taaf. 

 

The Regime’s crimes against our people in general are far too many to be numbered. And luckily many have been recorded and well publicized. This may have probably been due to the efforts of some vocative and well-organized and maybe well-greased spokespersons. Others however, are unfortunately not well publicized but yet equally gruesome and despicable as the despicable Regime perpetrating them. Among the latter category are those that affect the Eritrean Muslims . The latter category for some reason or another is not the favourite subject of our discussions in public and in our web forums yet. This could probably be attributed to some perceived sensitivity and uncalled for caution on our extra sensitive nationals who swallowed their pride by being recipients of aggression of the kin and bearing it silently for the sake of that kinship.  Here, I will just mention of one recent incident directed against a staunch landmark and a strong local educational institution of the Eritrean Muslims in Asmara as an illustration of the awful reality and the ugly facts on the ground compared to the claims of PFDJ to the contrary via its propaganda machine locally and internationally. 

 

The onslaught on Islam and the Muslims in Eritrea under different pretexts by the Dictatorial Regime in Asmara has never abated at all. Their land, language, honour, history, leaders and public figures, endowments, wealth, health and all their educational and religious and commercial institutions have been a constant target of the Dictatorial Regime’s continuing attack and aggression. In a hysterical frenzy to accomplish the desired cleansing of Eritrea from a meaningful and a visible presence of Islam and the Muslims, the Regime has been pursuing its notorious policies of elimination, disappearance and incarceration of any Muslim intellectual or businessman who may be conceived even remotely as a positive contribution to the society and a factor of enlightenment to his or her community. Recently a number of educators from a well known educational institution have become the target of the Regime’s latest acts of aggression. An experienced long-time school director of probably the only remaining Islamic Community School in Asmara has been arrested for over three months now since the beginning of the academic year. The Regime’s flagrant interferences on the affairs of the said institution and the Regime’s repeated attempts to confiscate the school and or change its demography has (unlike the rest of the Muslim Schools which have been systematically invaded) failed and there was no choice better for the Regime other than to shamelessly incarcerate the School Director and members of the Community School’s Executive Committee. By arresting the educators and the executives of the school on the commencement of the school year and by spreading the culture of fear and intimidation, the Regime is putting the fate of nearly two thousand students and their education and the livelihood of their teachers at risk. Yet, on the other hand the Regime is bent to mislead the world by projecting a fraudulent image of the PFDJ as the champion of education, children’s rights, progress and human rights. 

 

Fact And Fiction 

 

This is the situation on the ground and the grim awful reality of life in Eritrea. But the notoriously inhuman regime that we are plagued with is not ashamed at all to participate in international forums as the one that is currently under way UN human rights council: Review of Eritrea (Video) and to tirelessly brag nosily of imaginary progress in human rights, including rights of education and rights of children and what have you in a temerity that only the morally bereft PFDJ can masterfully excel. Listening to the PFDJ delegation blowing its own horn and enumerating the long list of imaginary achievements on all domains that one can think of, the unaware viewer would be tempted to think that Eritrea under the Dictator’s reign is nothing but God’s heaven on earth and not the living inferno that it sadly is. But the good thing is that the cheap talk and loud chatter of the PFDJ and the fairy tales of its delegations and emissaries to world forums fool no one any longer. All are aware of the reality and the cruelty of the humiliating life of the Eritrean people under the exclusivist, sectarian, dictatorial regime. Not all the spin and the empty claims of the Delegation were taken on face value in this particular Conference for instance. No one, in this point of time buys such a crab from the Regime. Listen, if you may, to some of the comments of the member nations attending the Conference at the end of the speech of the PFDJ Delegation. Although the usual diplomatic coating and courtesy softened some of the criticisms, nonetheless they were highly critical. Others were too painful to the PFDJ’s ego for if not literally incriminating they were by all standards tantamount to direct accusations to the Regime of outright human rights violations. The stinking stench of the Regime cannot be hidden further it is all too evident and rampant although the Regime might wish that all and everyone had no nose to smell with. You cannot fool the world by such P/R stunts when you are inherently evil and irrevocably corrupt beyond redemption. The deceitful and fraudulent image craftily portrayed by the Regime to delude the outside world is permanently shattered and no yelling here or crying there by its charlatan emissaries can restore it. It is just a matter of time and sooner or later the PFDJ will be served from its own cup. A bitter one indeed! But maybe a bloody one by way of courtesy returned. Time will tell. 

 

Belated Eid Al Adha greetings to you all – the Feast Of Sacrifice. We have suffered and sacrificed a lot but we know for certain that no sacrifice goes unrewarded. That is our consolation and our motivation for more sacrifices on the truthful cause.