(VG) Eritrea har sperret inne minst 10.000 politiske fanger og mange soner under horrible forhold, ifølge Amnesty.

Menneskerettighetsorganisasjonen har gitt ut en rapport om forholdene i Eritrea i forbindelse med at det fredag var 20 år siden verdenssamfunnet anerkjente Eritrea som en selvstendig nasjon. Her kommer det fram at minst 10.000 mennesker er fengslet av politiske grunner, blant dem den svensk-eritreiske journalisten Dawit Isaak som ble pågrepet i 2001.

Rapporten «Twenty years of independence, but still no freedom» beskriver i detalj hvordan regimekritikere, journalister, religiøse minoriteter, desertører og personer som har unndratt seg militærtjeneste, personer som forsøker å flykte fra landet, samt returnerte asylsøkere, blir arrestert og fengslet uten tiltale.

- Under president Isaias Afewerki, som har styrt de siste 20 årene, har situasjonen gått fra vondt til verre for store deler av den eritreiske befolkningen. Det er skremmende å se hvordan han har greid å bygge opp et system der ingen kan føle seg trygge. De fleste lever i frykt for politisk forfølgelse, vilkårlig fengsling og tortur, sier Gerald Kador Folkvord, rådgiver i Amnesty International i Norge.

LES HELE RAPPORTEN HER (PDF-fil)

LEVER HAN? Den svensk-eritreiske journalisten Dawit Isaak ble arrestert i 2001 etter å ha skrevet kritiske artikler om det sittende regimet i Eritrea. Ingen vet sikkert om han fremdeles er i live. Foto: SCANPIX

Underjordiske celler

Eritrean regime brutality

Escape From An Eritrean Prison

Eritrea's human rights record has long faced international criticism. Located in the Horn of Africa, the country is home to five million people, but so closed to the outside world that individual stories tend to come almost exclusively from those who have fled.
Kidane Isaac was just 18 when he says Eritrean authorities arrested him for an unspecified crime. It's possible he was suspected of planning to desert military service. Thousands of Eritreans flee the country every month, many of them teenagers, to escape the mandatory and indefinite military conscription.
Isaac was eventually taken to a remote prison, where he says he was confined with dozens of other prisoners in a shipping container with metal walls that amplified the hot desert days and freezing desert nights.
"The food was two lumps of bread a day," he said. "Into the night I could hear cries of people being tortured."

Eritrea's human rights record has been widely criticized under President Isaias Afwerki,

Sweden halts deportations to Eritrea

The move comes following an email sent on Thursday to all police authorities in Sweden to not forcibly deport people to Eritrea."From what I understand the Migration Board is planning to stop these type of forced deportations. That's why we've made this decision," Sören Clerton, head of the border control unit with Sweden's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) told the TT news agency.Clerton added that police have had talks with both the Migration Board and human rights group Amnesty about the situation in Eritrea.According to Amnesty, Sweden is the only country in Europe that has continued to deport people to Eritrea in recent years."It's a real problem that Sweden has made a faulty assessment of the risks in