1. CSW is a human rights organisation specialising in the right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). This submission brings the council’s attention to the human rights situation in Eritrea, with particular concern for those subjected to arbitrary detention on account of their religion or belief.
Detention of religious adherents
2. Under President Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) continues to violate every provision articulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), to which it is party, as well as in the country’s ratified but unimplemented 1997 constitution.
3. In May 2002 Eritrea effectively outlawed religious practices not affiliated with the Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran or Orthodox Christian denominations, or Sunni Islam. Other religious groups must register in order to practise their faith. However, the registration process is onerous, intrusive, and ultimately inconclusive. This repression also impacts members of permitted religious communities.
4. The 2002 measures followed an October 1994 directive from President Afewerki which revoked the citizenship rights of members of the Jehovah’s Witness movement for their refusal on religious grounds to participate in the 1993 Independence Referendum and their conscientious objection to the military aspects of national service. Since then, Jehovah’s Witnesses have experienced severe mistreatment. 64 are currently detained, including several in their 70s and 80s.
5. Three Jehovah Witness men who declined active military service and were detained in 1998 were only released in 2021, having endured privations, beatings and mock executions. In a significant legal development, on 20 August 2025the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) concluded1 that Eritrea violated multiple articles of the African Charter in the case of these men, including with regard to arbitrary detention, denial of legal status and judicial proceedings, and inhumane treatment, ordering that they be compensated. Eritrea has not responded.
6. In a subsequent ongoing campaign of arbitrary arrests, thousands of adherents of non-recognised religious communities have been detained in inhumane, often life-threatening conditions, in more than 300 sites across the country where food, potable water and medical assistance are scarce, and torture occurs routinely. None were formally charged or tried, and many are held pending a denial of their religious belief. Some are released once privations and mistreatment render them close to death. Unknown numbers have died, either in detention, or as a result of mistreatment endured while detained.
7. Minors also experience indefinite detention: 8 December 2025 marked 13 years since Ciham Ali, a dual US-Eritrean citizen and the daughter of a former Information Minister, was detained incommunicado, aged 15.
8. Eritrea was recently praised for the release of 177 Eritrean Christians between November and December 2025. However, the majority were released conditionally. The group included students who were arrested while recording worship music for YouTube in April 2023.
9. According to BBC Tigrinya, the series of conditional releases began on 18 November 2025, when 16 men and three women were freed on bail from a prison in Keren.Then on 3 December 2025, ten men and 16 women were released; 36 members of the Full Gospel Church – 16 men and 20 women – were released on 11 December, and 17 were released on 12 December.3 Other prisoners were released in smaller groups.
10. While the prisoners released on 3 December had been detained arbitrarily for three years, most of those released since 11 December had been held in the infamous Mai Serwa Prison for close to five years. Located near the capital city, Asmara, Mai Serwa is notorious for harsh conditions and the use of shipping containers as cells.
11. The overwhelming majority of these releases were reportedly conditional. To secure their freedom, prisoners were obliged to sign a document confessing to having committed a crime by joining a proscribed denomination, promising not to do so again, and accepting full responsibility for any punishment if they disobey.
12. In early December 2025 reports also emergedof the release of 13 detainees from Mai Serwa who had been held arbitrarily for nearly 18 years, including a former Olympian who competed in the 1980 Moscow Games, two businessmen and six senior policemen.
13. Some Eritrea observers are attributing the series of releases of Christians in late 2025 to a regular routine in which largely young people who have spent up to three years in prison are freed, making room for further arbitrary arrests. However, others speculate the releases of detained Christians in particular form part of Eritrea’s effort to reset relations with the US following the return of the Trump Administration, which recently announced its intentions to lift sanctions imposed by the previous administration due to violations committed in in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
Compulsory military service
14. Eritrean society is heavily militarised. By law, military service should last for 18 months, but in reality it remains indefinite. Recruits receive minimal wages and are regularly mistreated or subjected to forced labour in development projects, farms owned by officials, and even in foreign-owned enterprises, amid a lack of transparency regarding monies paid to the government for their services.
15. Senior officers regularly subject young female recruits to sexual harassment and other gender-based violations. Random military roundups continue to occur amid credible reports, both in the lead up to and during the war on Tigray, of young people, including minors, being seized from homes, streets and marketplaces and forcibly conscripted. The families of those deemed to have evaded military service were evicted from their homes, which are boarded up, and anyone found assisting them risked similar mistreatment.
Transnational Repression (TNR) and International Crimes
16. The comprehensive repression has generated a significant refugee exodus, with citizens risking a shoot-to-kill border policy among other dangers, to flee their country. According to the UNHCR, as of 2024 over 683,000 Eritreans,1 around 17% of the population, were registered refugees or asylum-seekers.
17. Eritrea also exports repression, committing extraterritorial crimes to control and extort its diaspora. In his June 2024 report the UN Special Rapporteur on Eritrea highlighted ‘evolving patterns of transnational repression’ designed to ‘counter the work of pro-democracy activists, journalists, political opponents and human rights defenders, including by resorting to kidnappings and enforced disappearances, unlawful removals, surveillance, violence, intimidation, harassment, smear campaigns, social isolation and the refusal of consular service.’
18. Following decades during which Eritrean diplomatic missions have organised cultural festivals reportedly utilised to extort, intimidate and radicalise the diaspora, violence now occurs between government supporters and opponents ‘in dozens of cities across the globe’, with some resulting in deaths, injuries, arrests and destruction of property. In March 2025 the government of Germany designated Brigade N’Hamedu, a decentralised grassroots movement of Eritrean refugees and activists created in response to Eritrea’s transnational repression in the absence of effective action by host nations, a terrorist organisation.
19. In its final report to the HRC, the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia(ICHREE) found that the Eritrean Defence Forces, Ethiopian National Defence Force, regional forces, and affiliated militias had ‘perpetrated violations and abuses in Tigray on a staggering scale,’ including mass killings, widespread and systematic rape and sexual violence against women and girls, deliberate starvation, forced displacement, and large-scale arbitrary detentions, which ‘amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.’6 The experts stressed the need for further independent investigation to ascertain if the crimes of extermination and/or genocide were also committed.
20. Eritrea is currently involved in the war in Sudan. The country is reportedly a primary training ground for pro-Sudan Armed Forces(SAF) armed groups and is alleged tofacilitate SAF drone operations and arms transfers – including ammunition, anti-aircraft systems, and spare parts – via airfields in Asmara and Massawa. The Eritrean navy maintains a presence near Port Sudan, and Eritrean troops were reportedly deployed clandestinely to secure critical infrastructure in eastern Sudan.
Recommendations
21. Prioritise justice by implementing recommendations of the 2016 report of the UN Commission of inquiry on Eritrea (COIE),including to:(a)Determine that the situation of human rights in Eritrea poses a threat to international peace and security;(b)Refer the situation in Eritrea to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court;(c)Impose targeted sanctions, namely travel bans and asset freezes, on persons where there are reasonable grounds to believe they are responsible for crimes against humanity or other gross violations of human rights;
22. Establish judicial mechanisms to hold identified perpetrators of severe violations and atrocity crimes committed in Eritrea and abroad to account.
23. Urge Eritrea to engage fully and constructively with the Special Rapporteur on Eritrea and to issue a standing invitation to UN Special Procedures, granting them unhindered access.
24. Continue supporting the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on Eritrea, ensuring the mandate is renewed and fully resourced.
25. Urge all relevant UN mechanisms, including the Special Procedures and Treaty Bodies, to include the right to freedom of religion or belief in their reporting on Eritrea.
1. ACHRP, ‘Communication716/19-Three Jehovah’s Witnesses-v-State of Eritrea’, 4 November 2025, https://achpr.au.int/en/decisions-communications/three-jehovahs-witnesse-v-eritrea
2.CSW, ‘HRC58: Oral Statement During Enhanced Interactive Dialogue On Eritrea’, 27February 2025, https://www.csw.org.uk/2025/02/27/report/6459/article.htm
3.BBC, ‘The Eritrean Government Has Released 98 People Detained For Years on Religious Grounds’, 14 December 2025, https://www.bbc.com/tigrinya/articles/c98npdyevzpo
4.BBC, ‘Olympian And Other Eritreans Freed After 18 Years Without Trial, Relatives Tell The BBC’, 5 December 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2500jkd41o
5.Migration Policy, ‘Severe Repression in Eritrea Has Prompted Decades of Exodus’, 9 April 2025, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/eritrea-refugees-repression
6. OHCHR, ‘International Commission of Human Rights Experts Ethiopia: Comprehensive Investigative Findings And Legal Determinations’, A/HRC/54/CRP.3
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