Family of world’s longest-jailed journalist still battling to free him from Eritrean prison
source: The Globe & Mail
published: 28 July 2023
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It was an ordinary Sunday morning in 2001 when two large men, wearing similar suits, arrived at the entrance of a home in Eritrea. A young girl named Betlehem opened the door. The two men asked to see her father.
Her father, Dawit Isaak, politely invited the men to join the family for breakfast. Betlehem, who was seven at the time, remembers vividly what happened after the meal: “They said, ‘We have to go.’ And they took my father.”
More than two decades later, Mr. Isaak remains in prison in Eritrea. Nobody has seen him for many years. He has never been granted a trial. He is believed to be one of the world’s longest-imprisoned journalists, and a symbol of the crushed freedoms under Africa’s most repressive regime.
This week, a report by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s working group on arbitrary detention said Mr. Isaak’s long imprisonment was a violation of international covenants.
It expressed “utmost concern” over his 22-year detention “without any prospect of trial” and voiced alarm over reports of his deteriorating health and the torture he has allegedly suffered in jail. It called on Eritrea to disclose details of his situation – including his exact location, which remains unknown to this day.
Mr. Isaak, who was also a playwright and novelist, had always dreamed of freedom and democracy in his homeland. The small country in the Horn of Africa had fought tenaciously to secede from Ethiopia, finally winning independence in 1993.
He became the co-owner of Eritrea’s first independent newspaper, called Setit. But the newspaper was targeted by a harsh crackdown in 2001 when it dared to publish an open letter criticizing the government.
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