Media group asks Eritrea to free more journalists

LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) – A rights group voiced relief on Monday at the release of a Voice of America (VOA) reporter held by Eritrea but said the Red Sea state should also free other jailed journalists.

Eritrea has been Africa’s biggest jailer of journalists since 2001, when all independent newspapers were banned.

An opposition website said this month that VOA journalist Aklilu Solomon, an Eritrean, was freed in December after almost 18 months in jail. VOA and diplomatic sources in the region have confirmed his release.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which campaigns for the rights of journalists around the world, said: “Solomon’s release should prick the consciences of those who have influence over President Isaias Afeworki and push them into demanding the unconditional release of all the journalists who are being unjustly held.”

RSF said Solomon was arrested in July 2003 for describing in a report the grief of those who had lost members of their family during Eritrea’s 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia.

The conflict killed an estimated 70,000 people in trench warfare reminiscent of World War One.

Government officials declined to comment on Solomon’s case.

The journalist’s release was also mentioned in the Eritrea section of the U.S. State Department’s global human rights report, which said the country’s rights record “remained poor, and it continued to commit serious abuses”.

The U.S. report mentioned human rights abuses ranging from politically motivated detentions to arbitrary arrests of journalists. It also noted that the whereabouts of 11 senior politicians, arrested in 2001, remained unknown.

“We don’t comment on what other sovereign countries do, and we don’t expect others to interfere in our sovereign affairs,” said Yemane Ghebremeskel, director of the Office of the President in Eritrea.