ICC Note
Though the small country of Eritrea is often ignored, their human rights abuses are grave. Christians that do not belong to official denominations are rounded up and placed in storage containers whose temperatures can reach 120 degrees. Another concern is the 10-year-long house arrest of Patriarch Abune Antonios. It has been reported that his health is deteriorating and the pleas for his release have been largely ignored. Not only should Eritrea release its control over church affairs, they should end their human right abuses.
06/09/2017 Eritrea (Christian Post) – Eritrea’s persecution of Christians escalated throughout May, resulting in as many as 100 believers being arrested, a watchdog reported. Prisoners are often kept in “horrific” storage container jails where they are deprived of basic necessities.
“They’re rounded up and put into storage container prisons many times. Eritrea is on the eastern side of the continent of Africa where it gets extremely hot. These people are sometimes locked in storage containers with very little air ventilation and up to 120 degree heat,” Open Doors USA’s Emily Fuentes explained in an article for Mission Network News on Friday, describing the conditions the Christian prisoners are facing.
“[They] often get sick from the lack of hygiene in these places, and often don’t get the food they require to stay nourished. So it’s a horrific place for Christians who don’t fall into the approved denominations.”
Fuentes pointed out that “paranoid government crackdowns” led to the arrests of close to 100 Christians last month as authorities carried out door-to-door interrogations seeking to hunt down worshipers that fall outside the four recognized religious denominations.
Although members of Sunni Islam, Orthodox Christian, Catholic Christian, and Evangelical Lutheran groups are allowed to worship in the African country, those who fall outside these denominations are considered criminals.
…
