Eritrea frees a reporter after 18 months in jail without trial
ASMARA, Eritrea, Mar 4, 2005 (AP) — An Eritrean correspondent for the Voice of America has been released after almost 18 months in jail without trial, but 16 other reporters remain in secret jails, an international media watchdog said.
Aklilu Solomon is said to be in poor health after the detention during which, according to sources, he was held incommunicado in a metal shipping container at Adi Abeto Prison, near the Eritrean capital of Asmara, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Solomon was arrested in July 2003, after the VOA broadcast his report on the grief of families of soldiers killed in the 2 1/2-year war with neighboring Ethiopia. The story contradicted state media reports that relatives had celebrated the conscripts’ martyrdom, said the organization.
Authorities had claimed that he was taken to complete his compulsory military service, although the VOA said he had documents to show he has a medical exemption, the group said in a statement released late Thursday.
He was freed on December 31, 2004, but 16 other journalists remain in jail, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Eritrean officials were not immediately available for comment.
“We remain deeply concerned about the many journalists who are still jailed, without charge and reportedly in appalling conditions,” said Ann Cooper, head of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “CPJ calls on the Eritrean government to release all the jailed journalists immediately and unconditionally.”
There is no privately owned press in Eritrea, foreign media have been kicked out and local journalists are harassed, detained without trial and subject to intolerable intimidation, another media watchdog, the International Federation of Journalists, said Oct. 29.
Many have been detained since September 2001, when the government launched a brutal crackdown, shuttering all independent media and jailing critics, including journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
The Eritrean government has refused to reveal the whereabouts or status of the journalists, and information about their conditions is hard to obtain, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.