“Without concerted citizen action… these rights have little meaning anywhere” (Eleanor Roosevelt)
73 years ago, on December 10th 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations as the common standard for all nations. It set out, for the first time, the fundamental human rights to be universally protected. It has been translated into over 500 languages, and paved the way for the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties.
A leading voice who helped define and enact this ground-breaking document was Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the US President. It was she who said, “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. […] Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
So how well are these rights observed at home in Eritrea? Eritreans cannot avoid asking this question about their own country, after many years of harsh rule by the unelected Isaias Afwerki.
“All human beings are born free and equal”; “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Ask thousands of prisoners of conscience, Christians, Muslims, pacifists, conscientious objectors, how they are treated in Eritrea. They cannot answer from prison or the grave.
“No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Ask any Eritrean who has ever been in the hands of the police, security forces or in detention if he or she is safe from reprisals (i.e., outside his/her country). He or she will tell you from personal experience of torture suffered either personally, or by family or friends, overwhelming evidence of which is documented in the reports of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea, and successive Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Eritrea.
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention…everyone charged with a criminal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial.” Ask any detainee in Eritrea’s Gulag of prisons about justice and due process of law. He or she will possibly laugh bitterly at the very idea that they were aware of what crime they were charged with, or that were ever allowed to establish their innocence in court. They might ask: “what charge? What trial?”.
“Everyone has the right to freedom of movement…to leave any country including his own”. Tell that to the thousands of Eritreans who risk life and limb to escape from their country — which is one big prison, for them — crossing heavily guarded borders “illegally”, where some are shot dead, others are badly wounded, and any who are captured are consigned to incommunicado detention.
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”. Ask the more than 10,000 prisoners of conscience in Eritrea’s jails, including Christians, Muslims, and conscientious objectors who have never charged or tried for any crime, whether they enjoy this freedom. A sardonic laugh might be your only reply.
“Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country…through freely chosen representatives.” Eritrea has no parliament, no functioning democracy, no constitution, has not had any elections since its independence in 1991. Try to consult the people about their democratic rights and you will soon end up in prison.
“Everyone has the right… to free choice of employment…to just and favourable conditions of work.” Ask any young person, male or female, compelled to participate in National Service for a lifetime, with no end date, who now finds his or herself forced to fight in a savage conflict in Tigray, or to work in a dangerous mine or grim factory as a slave labourer and who is given “pocket money” for wages, about their freedom to choose an occupation. You will not receive quiet rejoinder; only a desperate cry for freedom from oppression.
“Everyone has the right to education…directed to the full development of the human personality and to strengthening respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”Ask any young Eritrean aged 17-18 enduring their last year of compulsory schooling at Sawa military camp about their “education.” He or she will tell you of institutional brutality, schooling in violence, the frequent sexual abuse of helpless young girls and women by army officers — and that no young person can avoid this except by fleeing the country.
So, what has the world done about over three decades of abuse of human rights in Eritrea? The UN Human Rights Council reported on all these human rights violations – some of which amount to crimes against humanity – in several reports, but has not taken things further. No one worldwide has any excuse for ignorance on these matters. The ultimate irony is that members of the UN General Assembly have twice cynically elected Eritrea to be member of the Human Rights Council! And still Eritrea continues its scandalous abuse of the majority of articles in the UDHR.
It is high time that the world held Eritrea’s governing regime to account, and imposed stiff targeted sanctions and penalties on its members for the brutality that continues to be unleashed on Eritrean citizens, much of which amounts to the gravest of international crimes.
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE)
