Washington, DC — The arrests of three more prominent government opponents in Eritrea over the past few days indicate that the month-long clampdown on dissidents is not slowing despite strong international pressure.
Eleven former ministers and eight journalists were detained last month.
The latest arrests reportedly include Idriss Abaire, the director-general of the Ministry of Labour and a veteran who was wounded in the liberation war. He was arrested on Friday. Detained Saturday was Abdu Ahmed Yonus, an elderly businessman who had signed a letter written by Eritrean elders to the president urging reconcilliation with the dissidents. Mr. Abdu was also known to be a friend of Hassan Keckia, another prominent businessman who was arrested two weeks ago.
Miriam Hagos, who was in charge of the Eritrea's International film festival scheduled to begin later this month has also been detained. This has surprized many. She is not known to have been involved in the political dispute unfolding over the last year.
A government spokesperson has charged that the arrested dissidents have been engaged in illegal activities that threaten national security. They may be tried for treason but so far there have been no specific details of the charges against them. "The [government's] accusation is very explicit and clear," Eritrea's Ambassador to the United States, Girma Asmerom, told allAfrica.com last week; "National security and sovereignty. The details [are] up to the court proceedings."
On its website Wednesday, the ruling party, the Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), posted what it called a dissident "agenda document" written in Tigrinya. The party claims that the document "makes it abundantly clear that the group of disparate individuals whose only uniting factor is enmity to the PFDJ, the president and government of Eritrea have been resorting to legal and illegal means to fight the country."
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According to the PFDJ, the jailed group planned to set up opposition cells inside Eritrea, and inside Eritrea's armed forces, in alliance with other Eritrean opposition groups, some of whom are alleged to be supported by the country's adversary in the recent war, Ethiopia.
The ruling party also claims that the dissidents have been planning to take party and government officials to court, for "concrete crimes".
For the first time, the country's media has been implicated in the alleged conspiracy, with the PFDJ's accusation that they were planning to give "continuous interviews [to the press], legally applying to start a newspaper and using the government media."
In an action seen as an expression of disapproval of the government's actions, the European Union has called home the ambassadors of its member-states for consultations. Last week the Dutch government froze development aid to Eritrea.
