The Eritrea Embassy has refused to accept a letter defending the release of Christian leaders who have been incarcerated in what is called “North Korea” for more than 20 years without charge, as demonstrators around the world call attention to one of the world’s worst religious freedom offenders.
Advocates gathered outside the Eritrea embassy on Thursday to protest the detention of seven Christian prisoners, including Orthodox priests, and the majority of Muslim states.
21 The protest, which is led by the Religious Liberty Partnership Justice Campaign, along with other advocacy groups, including Wilberforce, was held one day before International Day, commemorating the victims of Friday’s violent acts. Christian rights groups from various countries will hold demonstrations, processions and prayer meetings on Friday to encourage the international community to take action.
Eritrea leaders are reportedly being detained at the Wengel Mermela Crime Investigation Center, the largest security prison that the US International Religious Freedom Commission characterized as “sincere.”
After the speech was over, Christian Freedom International’s Era Elwin attempted to deliver the letter to an embassy signed by religious freedom advocacy groups and individuals defending on behalf of imprisoned Christian leaders. The embassy refused to accept the letter in opposition to the Eritrea constitution of 1997, in the treatment of Christian leaders, the African Charter on Human Rights and the international contract on civil and political rights.
21 Lou Ann Sabatier, Wilberforce’s communications director and one of the event’s speakers, indicated that supporters would mail letters to the embassy.
Two Eritrea-born members of the Coptotic Christian Church traveled from Delaware to join the protest after reading about it on social media.
Araiya Debessay, who has lived in the United States for over 40 years, revealed in an interview with the Christian Post that he had become “persona non-grata” in Eritrea after signing a letter published in 2000.
Debessay has never personally experienced religious persecution, but believes that his partnership with the “G-13” letter led Eritrea to the rest of his relatives to experience “consequences” from the government.
“Eritrea has no religious freedom,” he said.
“There are so many people who are persecuted because of their religious beliefs. This is unconstitutional, this is wrong, and this should not happen.”
Hale Tesfey, who has lived in the United States for nearly 20 years, says, like Debessay, “can’t go” to Eritrea because he knows the “results.”
“There is no such religious freedom or belief in Eritrea. Everything is controlled by the government and it is permeated by the government in all religious systems,” he said. “There is permeation in all Eritrea religions: whether it is orthodox, whether it is Catholic or evangelical.”
In addition to holding the signs in photographs of all seven Christian leaders, along with the word “7” and a poster containing the individual photographs of religious prisoners, supporters told the stories of people detained while speaking in front of the embassy.
Wendylight of Christian Freedom International said that Million Pastor Gebres Lassi, who headed Lema Evangelical Church in Masawa and worked as an anesthesiologist, was arrested at a security checkpoint in June 2004.
Wright said Dr. Kufur Gebremeskel, chairman of Eritrea’s Evangelical Alliance, was arrested after an assault on his home in 2004. After detaining a religious leader, authorities seized the keys in his church office and threatened his wife.
She said that in 2021, the open door of a religious persecution watchdog was discovered, which was discovered in 2021 that Gebremeskel was “stricken by stress-related hypertension and diabetes as a result of his incarceration.”
Rev. Gebremedin Gebreriorgis, an orthodox Christian priest, was arrested in November 2004 for “taught the word of God in a local language and objecting to ancient use in the Orthodox Church in Eritrea, which can only be understood by clergy.”
Another Orthodox Christian priest, Pastor Teclive Mengistea, was also arrested in 2004 and is currently suffering from high blood pressure.
Pastor Kidane Weldur, who led the complete evangelical church, has been in jail since 2005. Open Door reports that Weldou suffers from eye damage caused by diabetes, aggravated by long-term detention. Another Orthodox priest, Dr. Futsum Gebrenegus, was arrested in 2004 for his involvement in the renewal movement within the Eritrean Orthodox Church.
Pastor Hale Nyge, an evangelical leader and former accountant with a world vision for evangelical humanitarian charity, was also taken into custody in 2004 and has not seen his family in over 20 years.
Faith McDonnell of Catatism Global, a longtime Washington area-based religious liberal activist, said he was protesting outside the Eritrea embassy on behalf of Christian leaders who were imprisoned in 2005.
Protesters saw Eritrea relatives experiencing unfavourable treatment from the government, she said. Such treatments coincided with the testimony of survivors like gospel singer Helen Bellhane, who told President Donald Trump in 2019 that he spent 32 months inside a shipping container.
McDonnell said Bellhane “repeated his faith in Christ and refused to sign a paper that agreed to cease participating in Christian activities.”
Some prisoners faced “unspeakable sexual torture,” McDonnell added, but others were subject to another form of torture called “Jesus Christ,” adding that “the victim was peeling from her waist and standing on the block with her hands tied to a tree branch.”
“The block was removed and the victim left his feet suspended from the ground in a cross-like position,” she added.
Eritrea ranked 6th in the world watch list for the Worst Country Watchdog Open Door due to Christian persecution in 2025. The US State Department has designated Eritrea as a country that is particularly concerned about “a systematic, ongoing, terrible violation of religious freedom.”
Originally published by The Christian Post.
