PUBLIC
AI Index: AFR
64/006/2004

01 June 2004

UA 187/04 Fear of torture

ERITREA Haile Naizgi (m), pastor (minister) and chairperson of
the Eritrean Full Gospel Church Dr Kiflu Gebremeskel (m), pastor of the Eritrean Full Gospel Church Tesfatsion Hagos (m), pastor of the Rema evangelical church.

Church leaders Haile Naizgi and Dr Kiflu Gebremeskel were arrested at their homes in the capital, Asmara, on 23 May. They are reportedly held incommunicado in the 1st and 6th police stations respectively, in Asmara. Amnesty International considers them prisoners of conscience, arrested solely because of their religious beliefs. They are at risk of torture to force them to abandon their faith. They have not been taken to court within 48 hours, as required by law, or charged with any offence.

Tesfatsion Hagos, pastor of the Rema evangelical church in Asmara, was arrested on 27 May while on a visit to Massawa port. His whereabouts are not yet known, but he too is believed to have been arrested solely on account of his religious beliefs.

Haile Naizgi is the chairperson of one of Eritrea's largest pentecostal
churches, the Eritrean Full Gospel Church (also known as Mullu Wongel church). Dr Kiflu Gebremeskel, a former chairperson, is now a pastor. Their arrests are part of an intensifying wave of government persecution of minority Christian evangelical and pentecostal churches in Eritrea.

Both men are in their 40s. Haile Naizgi, formerly an accountant for World Vision, is married with four children. Dr Kiflu Gebremeskel, a former mathematics lecturer at the University of Asmara, with a PhD from a US university, is also chair of the Eritrean Evangelical Alliance, a grouping of different churches including the Rema church

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Hundreds of members of Eritrea's evangelical and pentecostal churches, both adults and children, and several pastors, have been arrested since early 2003, following a government directive of May 2002 closing them down the minority churches and ordering them to register with the new Department of Religious Affairs. Many people have been tortured to try to force them to abandon their faith. Men and women of military conscription age (18-45) have been drafted into the army.

The government appears to be opposed to the right to freedom of religious belief and worship for the rapidly-growing minority churches, which have attracted many youth converts, particularly from the official Eritrean Orthodox Church. Although criticism of the government is severely repressed, the minority churches have questioned official measures taken against them and have criticised arrests and ill-treatment of their members.

Amnesty International released a 49-page report on human rights violations in Eritrea on 19 May (Eritrea � "You have no right to ask" - Government rejects scrutiny on human rights, AI Index: AFR 64/003/2004), which included an appeal to President Issayas Afewerki on the occasion of Eritrea's 11th anniversary of formal independence from Ethiopia on 24 May to stop religious persecution. The government has made no reply.