In his annual report to the UN Human Rights Council, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker details the country’s continuing human rights abuses. This year’s report concentrates on religious repression and the transnational abuse conducted by President Isaias’s regime. Full report below, but these are two key areas:
- [The] continued use of enforced disappearance, decades-long arbitrary detention, and the persecution of political opponents, journalists and religious groups over the past three decades. It highlights, in particular, the systematic arrest of religious leaders and the closure of Muslim religious institutions and seizure of their property since the country’s independence.
- Most Eritreans who interacted with the Special Rapporteur stated that Eritreans abroad continued to be targeted and subjected to threats and harassment by individuals or groups linked to the Government of Eritrea. They observed that the system of overseas repression served several interconnected goals, including preventing the build-up of political opposition abroad, silencing dissent within Eritrea by punishing family members, and maintaining ideological influence over Eritrean community structures.
Martin Plaut 