Item 2: Interactive Dialogue with Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea

Organisation: Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)

Speaker: Ellis Heasley

Thank you Mr President,

CSW thanks the Special Rapporteur for his report.

It is regrettable that despite its Council membership, Eritrea still will not cooperate with his mandate and has limited engagement with other Council mechanisms, even as its troops are implicated in violations which may amount to atrocity crimes in neighbouring Ethiopia.

Also regrettable is the continuing lack of tangible progress towards resolving its human rights crisis.

We urge Eritrea to use the privilege of Council membership to engage positively with special procedures and advance the rights and freedoms of its citizens. We also call for the immediate withdrawal of its troops from Ethiopia, and full cooperation with the International Commission of Human Rights Experts.

Arbitrary detention of religious adherents continues. In March 2022, 29 Christians were arrested in a raid on a prayer meeting in a house in Asmara and detained in Mai Serwa prison. In May 17 more Christians were arrested while praying and taken to Mai Serwa.

There were reportedly arrests at several monasteries following the death in custody of Patriarch Antonios in February 2022, and five Orthodox priests arrested in June 2019 for supporting him remain detained. This month Tsigeweyni Mekonen Haile, mother of six and wife of one of three Orthodox clergy detained incommunicado since 2004, died on 5 June, without having seen her husband.

Twenty Jehovah’s Witnesses remain detained indefinitely. The community is still denied citizenship rights, and members risk arrest and harassment if caught meeting together.

We urge Eritrea to end the use of arbitrary indefinite detention, immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience, and restore citizenship rights to Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Given the lack of improvement in human rights over the last 12 months, Eritrea’s role in Tigray and Oromia, and its continued negligence in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear the Special Rapporteur’s mandate remains essential.

We urge the Council to ensure its renewal.

Thank you