Holiday Card Action 2006

Eritrea – Imprisoned Protestant Pastors
Pastor Haile Naizgi, Dr. Kiflu Gebremeskel, and Pastor Tesfatsion Hagos are a few of the many evangelical Christians who have been detained in Eritrea in recent years on account of their faith. When the government ordered in 2002 that all unregistered religions must close their places of worship and stop practicing their faith until they were registered, many groups worried that the process of registration could expose their members to reprisals by hostile authorities.

Many evangelical Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses continued to gather in private for worship. Police began arresting members of unregistered religious groups in 2003, intensifying the crackdown in 2005. A total of about 2,000 men, women and children who belong to now-closed evangelical Christian churches are believed held in prisons around the country.

Pastor Haile Naizgi, chairperson of the Mullu Wongel Church, and Dr. Kiflu Gebremeskel, chair of the Eritrean Evangelical Alliance, were arrested in Asmara in May 2004. They are detained in Karchele security prison, and are both reported to have been sentenced extra-judicially to five years’ imprisonment by a secret security committee. Pastor Tesfatsion Hagos of the Rema Church was also arrested in May 2004. He, too, is reported to have been sentenced extra-judicially to a five-year prison term, which he is serving at Karchele prison. Amnesty International considers the men to be prisoners of conscience. Please send them messages of support at the address below.


Please send cards of support to:
[prisoner’s name]
Karchele prison
2nd Police Station, Zone 7 Northern East
Zoba Maakel
Asmara
ERITREA