Inter­na­tio­nal Support of Conscien­tious Objec­tors and Deserters

The peace deal with Ethiopia has not changed Afwerki’s Eritrea

If anything, it has actually strengthened his regime.

(12.10.2018) After signing an historic peace deal with Ethiopia, and receiving unprecedented levels of positive media coverage, Eritrea applied for a seat at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). As a member of the UNHRC, Eritrea will have the right to vote on UN's human rights resolutions, including the ones that are about its own abuses, for a period of three years. So, as Eritrea prepares to take its place in a top human rights body, let me provide some insight into what the country really looks like today, despite high hopes and optimistic media reports about imminent political changes.

Canada: Church of Misfits Harbors American War Resister

(21.09.2010) First United Church in East Vancouver describes itself as "a community at the margins." The surrounding neighborhood on East Hastings hosts perhaps the largest outdoor assemblage of addicts, pushers, prostitutes, and mentally-disturbed persons in North America. The church itself houses as many as three hundred homeless people a night.

First United also is the place of sanctuary for an American war resister, 32-year old Rodney Watson. Since he can be arrested by Canadian and US authorities if he ventures outside, for one year Watson has taken asylum from war in an asylum of homeless misfits.

Eritrea: The fact that the flight itself might cost the refugees lives, is telling

Statement to press conference "Eritrean deserters report about imprisonment and torture"

(09.09.2010) As we all know, people from poor countries like Eritrea may leave their homeland for obvious and no obvious reasons. Some of the obvious reasons that have been driving people to migrate within their political borders, across their political borders and across continents can be:

1. Instability caused by war and warfare induced forced recruitment and military brutality
2. Dictatorial regimes and absence of security, justice and rights
3. Drought, famine and other natural catastrophe caused by environmental and climate change
4. Poverty, economic disparity, and search of a better life and change

The list of persecution, abuse and human rights violations, of deprivations and hardships in Eritrea is long. And worst is, that there seems no hope or means to change the situation. The fact that the flight itself might cost the refugees lives, is telling. If you risk death to escape from a situation – how bad must it be?

Eritrea: Report about protest rally in Frankfurt, Germany

(01.03.2009) Four male teenagers were caught and killed by Eritrean soldiers after their attempt to cross the border to Ethiopia illegally beginning this year. This was later reported by a survivor. Eritrean civil organisations and opposition groups called for a funeral march in Frankfurt/Main on February 28, 2009.