Eritrea: Dawit Isaak arbitrarily detained for 24 years without trial — and information on his whereabouts

Behind bars for nearly a quarter of a century, far from their families and friends, Dawit Isaak, Temesgen Ghebreyesus, Seyoum Tsehaye and Amanuel Asrat will begin their 24th year of secret detention in Eritrea on 23 September. Despite repeated calls from supporters worldwide and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which declared their imprisonment arbitrarytwo years ago, they continue to hold the world record as the journalists held for the longest period without trial.

Dawit Isaak was arrested on 23 September 2001 during a wave of repression launched by President Issaias Afwerki, who was then consolidating a dictatorship that spared neither political opponents nor independent media. Setit, the biweekly newspaper for which Isaak worked, was shut down and the journalist was arrested immediately afterwards. In 2005, he was briefly releasedfor two days before being detained again. Since then, there has been no sign of life.

RSF, together with RSF Sweden, continues to advocate for the release of Isaak and his colleagues, who were arrested alongside him. In September 2024, a new complaintfor crimes against humanity against the Eritrean president was filed with the Swedish Prosecution Authority. RSF, alongside PEN Sweden and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, publicly criticisedthe Swedish authorities "who do not seem to want to listen, and the Swedish Prosecution Authority (SPA), which appears to turn a deaf ear in the case of Dawit Isaak." Sweden had previously argued, in response to similar complaints, "that an investigation would be impossible because Eritrea would not cooperate."

Eritrea remains entirely closed to free and independent journalism. Yet, in October 2023, Eritrean officials presenteda misleadingly positive account of press conditions before the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) in Arusha, Tanzania. In 2018, RSF had condemnedthe enormous gulf between the situation described by Eritrean authorities and reality.

No foreign or domestic independent media are allowed to operate in the country. Outlets accessible from abroad have been blocked, and the only existing "media" are those directly controlled by the Ministry of Information, serving as regime propaganda.