THREE JAILED ERITREAN PASTORS ‘DISAPPEAR’

Security police take evangelical leaders to unknown location.

Relatives and friends of three
Eritrean pastors jailed since May discovered yesterday that the
prominent evangelicals have been transferred from their police station
cells in the capital of Asmara to an unknown location.

Full Gospel Church pastors Rev. Haile Naizgi and Dr. Kiflu Gebremeske,
and Pastor Tesfatsion Hagos of the Rema Evangelical Church, have been
incarcerated at Asmara’s No. 1, 6 and 4 police stations, respectively,
for the past three months.

Although the pastors’ wives and Christian friends have been allowed to
deliver food and clothing items to be passed on to the imprisoned men,
when they took food to the respective police stations yesterday
morning, local authorities informed them that the men were no longer
imprisoned there.

Since the last week of May, the pastors have been imprisoned without
charges and refused any personal contact with their families, who have
been given no reason for their arrests.

Local evangelicals who visited the wives of Naizgi and Gebremeske
yesterday said they found them “in distress and deep sadness over the
sudden disappearance of their husbands.”

“Such disappearances could be for the good, or for the worse,” one
source told Compass. “There are times that the security people take you
to unknown places for a couple of hours or days, and then release you
with serious warnings,” he said. “Or, they can just leave you there for
an unlimited time.”

Over the past three years, 11 former government ministers, 14
journalists and thousands of other political dissidents have been
detained and incarcerated in secret locations by the regime of
President Issayas Afewerki, who now rules Eritrea by fiat. These
prisoners’ families have no information whether they are dead or alive.

Eritrean authorities closed down all the congregations of what the
government considers “religious sects” in May 2002, ordering the
military police to forcibly prevent their meetings, whether in church
buildings or private homes. The state only recognizes four major
religions -- the Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran churches and Islam.

Currently at least 400 members of these banned evangelical churches are
known to be imprisoned for their faith, including more than 70 soldiers
held under severe conditions for over two years at the Assab Military
Prison.

In the most recently reported arrests on July 25, police arrested 30
guests and members of a Protestant wedding party in Senafe, jailing
them for four days and then releasing all but two. A Kale Hiwot Church
evangelist named Michel and Teame Kibrom, an elderly man in his 80s,
are believed to still remain under arrest.

However, Compass has recently confirmed that a Kale Hiwot leader named
Woldegabriel Gebremichel, 80, was not among the wedding prisoners, as
initially reported. According to his relatives, Gebremichel had
attended a separate wedding that week of his own son in Senafe, but
that marriage ceremony was not disrupted by the police.

www.compassdirect.org