ELL Eritrean Lowland League
Cairo-Egypt (munkhafadat.info)
Eritrean community members residing in the Egyptian capital Cairo attended an evening of solidarity with the Eritrean detainees and disappeared citizens on April 14, 2016. It was part of the global campaign of solidarity which is carried out by the Eritrean diasporas in different parts of the world in these days to shed light to the issue of the Eritrean detainees and the prisoners of conscience in Eritrea.
The evening which was organized by the Eritrean May 24 human right movement in Egypt was held under the slogan, “ Eritrean detainee….. our vanishing conscience”. It was opened by the Eritrean national anthem and followed by a speech of the head of refugee committee in the May 24 movement, Mr. Hamed Al-ajeb, who said that the date of May 14, 1992 represents the beginning of the independence of the Eritrean land and the absence of the freedom of Eritrean people. Indeed that date revealed the real face of the president Issayas Afwerki’s regime which marked the beginning of the series of detention, the enforced disappearances and the massive human rights violations which is unparalleled in the world.
He added that a big number of Eritreans many of whom teachers of religious schools were detained and disappeared in that day in a very illegal and inhuman way. He said no charges have been directed to those detainees and no one of them has ever been brought to court yet like the many other Eritrean nationals who later followed them in detention and disappearance from that date until the this current time where many Eritrean citizens are still suffering in secret detention centers of the regime.
Mr. Ajeb concluded his speech by calling Eritreans through out the world to peacefully struggle for this national and sacred issue until the freedom of all Eritrean detainees and disappeared natives. He also appealed to the international community and the international human rights organizations to escalate their pressure on the ruling regime in Eritrea to release the innocent detainees and disappeared nationals and to put an end to their prolonged suffering, enforced disappearances and the pain of their families and their relatives.
Mr. Mohamed-Nur Shamsee, head of the media committee in the May 24, movement, also spoke in the evening. He stressed that marking April 14 as the Eritrean detainee day is the least Eritreans can do in fulfillment for those heroes who scarified their freedom for the sake of their people’s dignity. He added Eritreans wherever they are should loudly speak and reflect the suffering and the pain of their detainees and the prisoners of conscience.
Present in the evening were Mr. Ashraf Abbas, a lawyer at the Hisham Mubarek Egyptian Center for human rights, and the French journalist Sophia from the weekly French magazine L’e xpress, who in their part declared their solidarity and their sympathy with the issue of the detainees and prisoners of conscience in Eritrea.
According to the latest reports from several international human rights organization, there are about 14,000 detainees and enforced disappearances in Eritrea, where their whereabouts is yet unknown and many of them are believed to be executed and some others died due torture and very poor prison conditions. These detainees and Disappeared Persons belong to different groups of people some of them are politicians, journalists, military personnel, teachers, artists and ordinary people.
Mohammed Hiyabu
Eritrean Journalist
Cairo, Egypt.
