Human Rights Group in London Joins Push for Release of Church Leaders in Eritrea Detained for Over 20 Years

On 19 November 2004, the authorities detained Dr Futsum Gebrenegus, at the time Eritrea’s only psychiatrist, and Dr Tekleab Menghisteab, a highly respected physician, both of whom are Orthodox priests, along with Rev Gebremedhin Gebregiorgis.

Also detained is Rev Kidane Weldou, senior pastor of the Full Gospel Church, who was seized from the streets of Asmara on 18 March 2005.

Mr. Bower said that many years may have gone past but the human rights foundation has not forgotten the detainees. “We have not forgotten them and we will not stop campaigning until they are finally free and reunited with their loved ones,” he said in the August 22 report.

The CSW official said that since 2002, when the Eritrean government outlawed religious practices not affiliated with Sunni Islam or the Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, or Orthodox Christian denominations, thousands of people belonging to non-authorized religious communities had been imprisoned.

Mr. Bower found it regrettable that even those from recognized religious communities are targeted by the Eritrean repressive regime.

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CSW and the foundation’s supporters have called upon the government of Eritrea to set free the seven who are believed to be held in Wengel Mermera Criminal Investigation Center and to also release “every other prisoner of conscience, without condition or further delay.”

The Eritrean government has continued to detain members of permitted religious communities arbitrarily, CSW says.

The human rights group says that in April this year, Rev. Gebremeskel Hagos, an Orthodox priest based in Switzerland who travelled to Eritrea following the death of his father, was detained.

In July, Sheikh Adam Shaban, a Muslim cleric and the director of the Quran Memorisation Centre in Ghinda, was also detained arbitrarily, reportedly after honouring a summons from the authorities.

At the end of the event in London, a letter signed by all who attended was delivered to the embassy calling for the release of the detainees, and for the right to freedom of religion to be “accorded in full to every religious community in the country.”