Christian Solidarity Worldwide, 7 May 2020
For the past 17 years CSW, along with other NGOs, have organised a protest vigil outside the Eritrean Embassy in London in May to mark the anniversary of the Eritrean government’s outlawing of religious practices not affiliated with the Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran and Orthodox Christian denominations or Sunni Islam in May 2002, and the campaign of arrests, which at its peak saw at least 3000 Christians of all denominations detained arbitrarily.
CSW has now joined 23 other NGOs in signing an open letter to member and observer states of the United Nations Human Right Council, calling for the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea.
The Special Rapporteur’s reports are a key means of monitoring the human rights situation in Eritrea, where officials are deemed to have committed violations amounting to crimes against humanity since 1991. However, the Eritrean government has refused to cooperate with successive mandate holders, and the country’s human rights situation continues to deteriorate. The current mandate is due to expire at the 44th session of the HRC, which is currently scheduled to begin in June 2020.