Last Foreign Correspondent Expelled

Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu Ahmed

On September 9, the last foreign correspondent in Eritrea, Jonah Fisher, who worked with BBC and Reuters, was expelled from the country without explanation. According to Fisher, three weeks earlier, Information Minister Ali Abdu Ahmed had criticized his "racist negative reporting," saying that he "knew who I really worked for." In the past, Eritrea has accused journalists of being foreign spies and jailed them for "national security" reasons.

Fisher had frequently been critical of the human rights violations in Eritrea, including a May 24 article entitled for the London daily, "The Independent," "To some Eritreans, freedom means prison and torture" (click here to view article). There has been no independent press in the country since September 2001 and at least fourteen Eritrean journalists are in prison.

Hundreds of Christians are presently in prison in Eritrea because of their faith. We encourage Christians around the world to pray for their brothers and sisters who are suffering for their faith, often without a voice to let the world know. The Eritrean government has repeatedly and vehemently denied that anyone is in prison for religious reasons.

For more information on persecution facing Christians in Eritrea, click here. To view a VOM video report released earlier this year, go to the Video section of https://www.vomcanada.com/. To listen to a shortwave radio program in Tigrinya that VOM is helping broadcast into Eritrea to encourage the believers there, click here and find the link to our international shortwave programs.