Death of the Press in Eritrea

Eritrea, briefly covered this week during our discussion of Ethiopia, is a curious country. It hasn't even turned 20 yet--independence from Ethiopia was only achieved in 1993 after a war between the two states. It continues to face international criticism for its alleged support of Sudanese rebel groups, and some dispute remains over the border with Ethiopia. The country has been governed by a single-party system led by Isaias Afworki since independence with an unratified constitution and elections that have been suspended "indefinitely".

This Reuters article reports on the deaths of four journalists in Eritrea. Reporters without Borders, a global non-profit that monitors press freedom around the world, confirmed that at least three, possibly four, reporters died in the country after being imprisoned for years. It is difficult to verify these claims because Eritrea is classified as "not free" according to the Press Freedom Index. Eritrea has no independent media and has a history of harassing non-compliant and foreign journalists. Eritrea has a poor track record as far as human rights are concerned, as well, but consistently denies these accusations and says that these rights groups are "working for foreign intelligence services" in order to undermine the Eritrean government.

A nationalized or tightly restricted press is often key to authoritarian regimes. Neopatrimonial leaders do not want information to be widely available to their citizens, and they do not want them to be able to communicate easily--Zaire's Mobutu displayed this tendency when he destroyed miles and miles of roads. As we discussed in class on Friday, one of the factors that has contributed to the violent reaction in Muslim countries to the controversial Mohammed video was that they assumed that it was from a state-backed source because that is how they receive information in their own countries. Freedom of the press is critical to democracy because it allows for debate and criticism of the ruling party or of the leader. Neopatrimonialist regimes do not tolerate dissent, so they forbid this freedom. Clearly, Eritrea's poor ratings from a variety of international organizations and a "morgue" verdict for their leader imply that they have a long way to go before democracy (and journalists) have a shot at survival.

Eritrean Leader according to the African Leadership Index (2012)

Sources: 

CIA World Factbook: Eritrea 

--https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/er.html

African Leadership Index 2012