In this interview, Her Excellency Hanna Simon, Ambassador of the Republic of Eritrea to France talks to Pambazuka News correspondent, Sarraounia Mangou Tete, in Paris on wide-ranging issues, key among which include the sanctions imposed on this young horn of Africa nation by Western imperialist powers.

Eritrea’s remarkable success in combating HIV/AIDS is founded upon a multisectoral approach that involves the targeting of harmful societal behaviors and traditions like banning child marriage and female genital cutting

The brutality of the repressive Eritrean government coupled with deep seated economic problems in the tiny country provide deep-seated reasons why Eritreans are a people under siege seeking escape and fundamental change in their country

There is a need to teach African youth in the diaspora to keep their identity while also providing them with opportunities to play a role as active citizens in their countries of origin. Eritrea has vibrant examples of this

In a petition, the organisations say the ongoing widespread and systematic nature of human rights violations in Eritrea underlines the need for continued and urgent action by the African Union

Three European jurists referred the case of the imprisoned Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaac to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on 27 October, his 48th birthday and the 12th in succession that he has spent in an Eritrean jail. In an earlier case before the African Commission the Eritrean Government has stated that its own court system is independent and could handle the case of Dawit Isaac and others.

Eritrea has reduced its support for the al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab militant group in Somalia under international pressure, but still violates UN Security Council resolutions and remains a destabilising influence, a UN report says. The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, which investigates violations of an arms embargo on both nations, said in a report to the Council, seen by Reuters, that it had found no evidence of direct Eritrean support for al Shabaab in the last year.

This article from the Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration explores the ways in which Eritrean asylum-seekers in Israel narrate their experiences of suffering. These narrators were held hostage in the borderlands of the Northern Sinai desert by human traffickers for indefinite periods of time en route to Israel. Numerous Eritrean asylum-seekers experience and bear witness to torture, kidnapping, extortion, rape, and organ removal during the journey.

Eritrea is the world's most censored country, a new analysis by watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists has found, beating out both North Korea and Syria. Equatorial Guinea also makes it on the list of the world's ten most censored countries in the report released ahead of the World Press Freedom Day.

In March, 44 countries called on the Government of Eritrea to end its use of arbitrary detention and torture of its citizens. Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Human Rights Concern - Eritrea and the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project welcomed this long overdue attention paid to the widespread and systematic human rights violations continuing in Eritrea for over a decade. In a statement to the UN Human Rights Council, states from Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America and North America expressed their concerns about the government’s refusal to hold national elections or allow opposition parties, independent media or international non-governmental organisations to operate.

The World Bank and European Commission officials have accused Nevsun, the Canadian mining company operating in Eritrea, of misleading its investors. A Wikileaks cable, dated 15th June 2006, describes a visit organised by Nevsun and the Government of Eritrea for export credit agencies from Canada and South Africa, as well as Proparco, Standard Bank, and the European Investment Bank.

Sweden, whose citizen has been jailed by Eritrea for more than ten years without charge, has moved to block the flow of diaspora money to the isolated Red Sea nation. Its parliament, Riksdag, is preparing legislation to block a two per cent mandatory tax collected by Eritrea from its citizens living in Sweden. Sweden has been demanding that Asmara releases Eritrean-born Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak who has been in jail since 2001 for being critical of President Isaias Afewerki's government.

22 February is the third anniversary of a raid on Radio Bana in central Asmara in which about 50 journalists were arrested. Most were released but at least 11 are still held and are in solitary confinement. Reporters Without Borders is continuing to campaign for them and other journalists who are imprisoned in Eritrea, some since September 2001.

Eritrea has been cleared of allegations that it was arming Al Shabaab militants in Somalia late last year.
A preliminary report by the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) concludes that the allegations were untrue.

The name Solomon Abera will forever be etched in the collective memory of Eritrea's press corps. On 18 September 2001, as the world focused its attention on the terrorist attacks on the United States, the government of Eritrea borrowed Abera's voice to sound the death knell, on state-controlled airwaves, of the Red Sea nation's independent press. Shortly after Abera read the announcement, the government rounded up leading independent newspaper editors and a dozen ruling-party dissidents calling for democratic reform - all of whom have disappeared in custody. On 2 December, the Committee to Protect Journalists said they learned that Solomon Abera, who lived in exile in Germany after fleeing government censorship and intimidation in 2005, was no more.

Standing across the street from the American embassy in Tel Aviv, more than 200 Eritrean asylum seekers chanted 'Yes to justice! Yes to humanity!', and demanded international intervention to stop torture camps in the Egyptian Sinai. Protests by African asylum seekers in Israel are growing, in the face of increasingly tough policies by the Israelis. 'We’re here to stop this torture and to call the world to be aware of this,' said Habtom Mehari, a 30-year- old Eritrean asylum seeker, at the rally on 25 November.

Egyptian authorities will deport 118 Eritrean refugees currently detained by Cairo, officials said. A lobby group, the Eritrean Refugee Solidarity Movement coordinator, Mr Muse Bahremariam, told AfricaReview.com that the Eritreans had been detained as a prelude to their being handed over to Asmara, in disregard to the international human rights conventions.

Human Rights Watch has urged the new government in Egypt against deporting Eritrean asylum seekers who are currently being detained in the North African country. The international advocacy group said Egyptian authorities are preparing to forcibly return a group of 118 Eritreans including recent deserters from the Eritrean Army; accusing Cairo of renewing the trend of mass deportations it exercised in 2008 and 2009. In most cases Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers upon return are immediately thrown to secret detention centers where they are subjected to severe torture and other in-human treatments, the human rights group says.

Eritrea’s president has asked for a personal hearing before the UN Security Council in a bid to head off new sanctions over alleged support for Somalia’s Islamist rebels, diplomats said. Rival Ethiopia has been calling for tougher action against Eritrea for several months after its neighbor was linked to a plot to bomb an African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

The Sudanese authorities are increasingly deporting Eritreans to their country without allowing them to claim asylum, Human Rights Watch said. On 17 October, Sudan handed over 300 Eritreans to the Eritrean military without screening them for refugee status, drawing public condemnation from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).