ينجز الناس في حياتهم اليومية مهام عديدة، والأكثر نجاحاً من هؤلاء هم من يسخـِّــرُون جهودهم وأموالهم في إنجاز مهامهم، وإحدى أهم المهام التي تهم الارتريين اليوم هي الكفاح من أجل المعيشة اليومية جنباً الي جنب النضال لنشر العدالة والاستقرار الأمني والسياسي في بلادنا ارتريا. لكلا المهمتين تفاصيل مختلفة عن بعضها البعض، لكنهما مهما كانت الظروف لا تنفصلان، وكل تمسك بإحدى المهمتين دون الأخرى سوف يكون له أثره السالب علي ما تحقق من نجاح في المهمة الواحدة. لذا علينا خلق أرضية تصالحية بين المهمتين، وهنا يتطلب الأمر الجد والإخلاص، وما يبدو من تناقض بين المهمتين يعود الي ظروف ذاتية وموضوعية لن تظل ثابتةً علي حالٍ واحدة. فمثلاً تختلف الظروف والمفاهيم السائدة إبان فترة النضال التحرري من أجل السيادة الوطنية وتلك السائدة اليوم في النضال من أجل الديمقراطية والحقوق والحريات الأساسية، فعلي سبيل المثال لا يمكننا القول أن نضال الأمس يجب أن يتطابق مع نضال اليوم، لكن ثوابت المرحلتين من روح تضحية وإخلاص تظل قائمةً في القديم والجديد.
النضال من أجل المعاش اليومي والنضال من أجل الحقوق، كلاهما يتطلب معينات مادية ومعنوية تختلف من شخصٍ أو دورٍ لآخر، لكن كلاهما يتطلب الجهد والإسهام من الجميع، وأية محاولة لاحتكار العمل النضالي سوف تقعد بصاحبها وتتركه وحيداً. لا شك أن النضال المشترك مع الآخرين أثقل وطأة من الكفاح الفردي اليومي لتوفير المعيشة. ذلك لأنه نضال ضخم في الحجم والنوع، وليس نضالاً معيشياً يقتصر علي أفراد الأسرة. في النضال العام من أجل إنقاذ الشعب والوطن لابد أن يختلف الإخلاص من فردٍ لآخر، فالمخلص يرى أن يكون الجهد والمساهمة من الجميع والثمرة أيضاً للجميع. أما غير المخلص فيعدد مبررات تخلفه عن النضال كالاعتراض علي بعض الأشخاص أو التنظيمات، هذا فضلاً عن تقديم المسئوليات الذاتية والعائلية علي المسئوليات النضالية. لكن لن تجد اليوم من يبرر تخلفه بأنه لا يرى ما يستوجب النضال والتغيير من الأساس بادعاء أن ارتريا في أفضل أحوالها. وهذا في حد ذاته خطوة نحو تغيير أفكار التقاعس عن النضال من أجل القضايا الوطنية.
للقدرة أو الكفاءة معانٍ متعددة بحيث لا يمكن حصر معناهما في شيء محدد نطلق عليه وصف القوة أو القدرة. لكن إجمالاً يمكن تلخيص القدرة أو الكفاءة في القدرة علي إنجاز ما يلينا أو يسند الينا من مهام. هذه القدرة علي الإنجاز يمكن اكتسابها عبر العمل والتجارب التطبيقية المستمرة. والكفاءة لا تنحصر علي الإنجاز فحسب، بل لها دور حاسم في تقييم قدراتك وما إذا كنت في حياتك شخصاً ناجحاً أم فاشلاً.
الفاشلون في حياتهم يحاولون الاستقواء بضعف واحتقار الآخرين بدلاً من الاعتراف بأن فشلهم يعود الي عوامل ذاتية. يجري ذلك بين الأشخاص والمؤسسات. وليس من المبالغة القول إن المرض العضال الذي تعانيه معارضتنا الوطنية اليوم ليس إلا هذا، أي نسب الفشل الي آخرين وعوامل خارجية، إن من الكفاءة أن تتغاضى عن سلبيات الآخرين وأن تشيد بقدراتهم مهما كانت ضئيلة، علي أن لا يكون ذلك دفاعاً عن السلبيات وتستراً عليها، بل أن نفعل ذلك ونحن نرنو الي معالجة نقاط الضعف والقصور لا تضخيم السلبيات.
عند الفشل في إنجاز مهامنا يجب أن نحاور أنفسنا متسائلين عن تحديد عوامل الفشل وهل منها ما يعود الينا أم لا، وهذا التصرف في حد ذاته كفاءة ونقطة تحسب لصالح من يعمل فيفشل. ومن يدرك خطأه يجب أن يقوم بالمعالجة الفورية لخطئه. كما لا يجب أن يخجل المخطئ من طلب المساعدة من الأشخاص أو المؤسسات ذات الصلة بعمله أو مهمته. أما إذا وصل الشخص المعني الي خلاصة مفادها أنه غير قادر علي إنجاز مهمته لا بنفسه ولا بمساعدة الآخرين يجب أن لا يتأخر عن إعلان فشله وتسليم مفاتيح المهمة لمن يظن بهم القدرة بدلاً من التخزين غير المشروع للمهمة في أدراجه أو سلة مهملاته. الاعتراف بالفشل يعتبر في حد ذاته دليل قدرة وكفاءة. أما الفشل فهو أن تعلق فشلك علي كتف الآخرين، الأمر الذي سوف يقلل من قدرتك حتى علي التخلص من عيوبك. إن الاعتماد علي تشويه الآخرين لن يضرهم إلا بصفة مؤقتة، لكن لا شك سوف يجتازون ما تضعه أمامهم من معيقات. بينما يدفع الفاشل ثمن تصرفاته السيئة في تحميل الآخرين أخطاءه وفشله.
في مثل حال نضالنا من أجل التغيير علي الرغم من كوننا في معسكر واحد، فإن حدوث خلاف وفوارق داخل معسكرنا أمر طبيعي مسلـَّــم به، وقد ينعكس ذلك في اختلاف الرأي حول قضايا عديدة، ومن الطبيعي أن يسعى كلٌّ منا الي إقناع الآخرين برأيه أو التسليم بأنه علي الصواب. وفي هذه المنافسة يجب أن لا تكون أسلحة سباقنا بلورة نواقص الآخرين بدلاً من استخدام الحجة والمنطق في طرح رؤيتنا. هذا وما لم تكن المنافسة شريفة ومعتدلة قد يتحول الخلاف فيها الي أحقاد وعداوات شخصية، كما أن اختلاف الرأي لن يفسد للود قضية كما يقولون، وما دام الود باقياً بين المتنافسين لن يطول الوقت حتى تلتئم خلافاتهم أو يتم تجاوزها وتأجيلها الي حين. وخلال ذلك يعيش الفريقان عملية المد والجزر في حجم ومساحة الخلاف والنزاع بينهما.
أما محاولة توسيع شقة الخلاف بينك وبين من لا يمكنك الاستغناء عنه فهي لا تعدو أن تكون مضاعفة لنقاط ضعفك ليس إلا. من غير الممكن الاستمرار علي تقييم واحد لمن اختلفت معه مرة ولا أن تقيسه بخطأ بدر منه يوماً ما. ذلك أن لكليكما رؤية لا يمكن لأحدكما تغييرها. إن ذلك لن يتغير إلا بعوامل ذاتية نابعة من الإرادة المحض لصاحب الرؤية ولن تكون الغلبة في ذلك التغيير لما حاولت أنت إلباسه إياه من قميص لم تحسن تفصيله.
يجب الانتباه الي أن من المألوف في الكثير من المناسبات أن تجد شخصاً أو تنظيماً يرى أنه علي الصواب وأحق بالاتباع أكثر من الآخرين. إن الإكثار من هذه المعارك الدونكيشوتية له خطر عظيم علي استمرارية الروابط الأزلية والقواسم المشتركة بين مكونات الفريق الواحد والتي يصعب فيما بعد إعادة رتقها. لكن كلما كان هناك نوايا حسنة بين الفرقاء يمكنهم التلاقي في منتصف الطريق وإعادة ما تصرَّم من وشائج. وهذا ما يجعلنا ننادي بأن تنبع قوتنا من أنفسنا لا اعتماداً علي أخطاء وعيوب الآخرين.
File photo of migrants arriving on an Italian navy ship. Photo: Giovanni Isolino/AFP
AFP
3 November 2016
08:40 CET+01:00
Italian police have used beatings and electric shocks, potentially constituting "torture", to coerce migrants into being fingerprinted as Italy cracks under pressure from the EU, Amnesty International said Thursday.
"The European Union's pressure on Italy to 'get tough' on refugees and migrants has led to unlawful expulsions and ill-treatment which in some cases may amount to torture," the human rights NGO said in a report.
The EU-sponsored "hotspot approach" for processing people - which requires Italy to fingerprint incomers so they can be prevented from claiming asylum elsewhere - has even seen minors abused, according to testimony from over 170 migrants.
Some migrants do not want to be finger-printed as they hope to continue on to an EU-nation of their choosing and apply for asylum.
Last year Europe saw an influx of more than one million migrants and asylum seekers fleeing war and poverty in its worst such crisis since World War II.
"In their determination to reduce the onward movement of refugees and migrants to other member states, EU leaders have driven the Italian authorities to the limits - and beyond - of what is legal," said Matteo de Bellis, Amnesty International's Italy Researcher.
"The result is that traumatized people, arriving in Italy after harrowing journeys, are being subjected to flawed assessments and in some instances appalling abuse at the hands of the police, as well as unlawful expulsions," he was quoted as saying.
Of the 24 reports of ill-treatment Amnesty gathered, 16 involved beatings. In several cases, people also said they had been given electric shocks with stun batons, including a 16-year-old boy from Sudan.
"They gave me electricity with a stick, many times on the left leg, then on right leg, chest and belly. I was too weak, I couldn't resist and at that point they took both my hands and put them on the machine," he was quoted as saying.
Another 16-year-old said police had inflicted pain on his genitals. A 27-year-old told Amnesty that officers had beaten and electric-shocked him before making him strip and using a pair of three-pronged pliers on him.
'Human rights violations'
"I was on a chair made of aluminium, with an opening on the seat. They held [my] shoulders and legs, took my testicles with the pliers, and pulled twice," he said.
The NGO said that while the vast majority of fingerprinting takes place without incident, the findings of this report raise "serious concerns" and it called for an independent review of the situation.
De Bellis told AFP the testimonies were consistent with each other and therefore, while Amnesty cannot verify every single detail of each account, "we are certainly in a position to say there is a problem of use of excessive force by the police".
Under pressure to root out genuine asylum-seekers from economic migrants as soon as possible, police quiz new arrivals without providing them with psychological support for traumas suffered during the journey or advice on asylum procedures.
And as Europe races to close its borders, Italy has been seeking to up the number of migrants it sends back to their home countries and has negotiated readmission agreements "with countries that have committed appalling atrocities," it said.
One such Memorandum of Understanding was signed with Sudan in August, allowing for a summary identification process that, in certain circumstances, may even take place in Sudan, after the expulsion has been carried out.
"Even if the identification takes place in Italy, it is so superficial, and so heavily delegated to Sudanese authorities, that it does not allow for an individualized determination that a person will not be at real risk of serious human rights violations upon return," it said.
Amnesty cited the case of 40 Sudanese put on a plane to Khartoum on August 24th, saying it had spoken to a 23-year-old man from Darfur who was on this flight and was beaten by security forces on his arrival.
File photo of a boat used by migrants to cross the Mediterranean. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP
AFP
3 November 2016
13:36 CET+01:00
At least 110 people are feared drowned off Libya after a migrant shipwreck and more may have died in another stricken vessel, the UN's refugee agency said on Thursday, citing survivor testimony.
"A vessel with around 140 people on board overturned Wednesday just a few hours after setting off from Libya, throwing everyone into the water. Only 29 people survived," UNHCR spokesperson Carlotta Sami told AFP.
The Norwegian vessel Siem Pilot was first on the scene, some 20 nautical miles off Libya, and rescued the survivors - all of whom were in poor condition after spending hours in the water - and recovered 12 bodies.
Those pulled to safety were transferred to the island of Lampedusa by the Italian coast guard.
In what could be a second incident, which could not be immediately confirmed by the coast guard, two women told the UN agency they believed they were the only survivors in an disaster in which some 125 people drowned.
"They told us they were on a faulty dinghy which began to sank as soon as they set sail. They were the only survivors," Sami said.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) quoted the same survivors but put the total death toll at around 240 people.
"Not enough has been done so far to avoid these tragedies," said Flavio di Giacomo, IOM spokesman in Italy.
The Italian coast guard said it had no information on the second reported rescue on Wednesday or the saving of two women.
Over 4,000 migrants have died or are missing feared drowned after attempting the perilous Mediterranean crossing this year.
Migrants overboard
The rescue situation is often chaotic, with people confused, sick or exhausted after periods in crisis-hit Libya unable to specify how many people were on board their dinghies at the outset or what vessel pulled them from the water.
At least two rescue missions were underway off Libya on Thursday, with close to 180 people pulled to safety according to an AFP photographer aboard the Topaz Responder, run by the Malta-based MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station).
"Before dawn, we saw a migrant dinghy, lit up by the Responder's search light," photographer Andreas Solaro said, adding that 31 people, 28 men and three women, one of them elderly, were rescued.
In the second rescue, 147 people from Eritrea, Ghana, Sudan, Mali and Sierra Leone were pulled to safety, including 20 women, though only after some had fallen into the sea.
"The (Responder) crew was shouting at them to sit down and stay calm while the lifejackets were handed out but they were getting agitated, and around ten of them fell overboard, some without lifejackets on," Solaro said. All were pulled to safety.
October marked a record monthly high in the number of migrants arriving in Italy in recent years - some 27,000 people - and the departures have showed no sign of slowing, despite worsening weather in the Mediterranean.
Amnesty International warned Thursday the pressure placed on Italy by Europe to cope alone with the worst migration crisis since World War II had led to "unlawful expulsions and ill-treatment which in some cases may amount to torture".
Eighteen Eritrean Football Players Disappear in Uganda
In this extract from“Understanding Eritrea: Inside Africa’s Most Repressive State,author Martin Plaut reflects on Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The president led his people through most of the 30-year war with Ethiopia that culminated in independence in 1993. But the country has never held an election: President Isaias is an absolute ruler without a democratic mandate.
Note: Eritreans are known by their first names, so Isaias Afwerki is known as President Isaias on second reference.
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How was it that Eritrea, which won its freedom at such a price, has sunk so far in just over two decades? Once hailed as a beacon of hope for the Horn of Africa, it is now mired in poverty, repression and bitter recriminations with almost all its neighbors. Thousands flee the country every month, braving the Sahara desert and drowning in the Mediterranean, to seek sanctuary on European soil.
The answer can be traced, in good measure, to the personality and policies of one man: Isaias Afwerki. At 70, he has been both the towering figurewho led his people to independenceand the dictator who now holds them in servitude. Yet, whatever his faults, Isaias has done little to encourage a cult of personality.
Asmara, the Eritrean capital, is not a city littered by his portrait or dominated by North Korean style statues of the "great leader" of the kind that can be found in other African capitals. But Isaias has made such an indelible imprint on his nation that it is impossible to understand Eritrea without grasping something about its president.
Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki reviews the honor guard during his welcome ceremony in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, June 11, 2015.ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/GETTY
Isaias was born on February 2, 1946, in a working class suburb of Asmara. At school he became involved in secret nationalist politics, before leaving to study engineering in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in 1965.
Isaias’s studies did not progress well and he failed his June 1966 exams and had to repeat his year. Without funding for food or lodging it was not a tempting prospect. Isaias decided to leave to join the liberation movement thenfighting for Eritrean independencefrom Ethiopia.
He travelled to eastern Sudan, from where the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was launching attacks inside Eritrea. There he was joined by two friends: Mussie Tesfamikael and Haile Woldetensae, who later became Eritrean foreign minister. Haile, who had been with Isaias at university, described how he was received when he arrived in Sudan in December 1966.
“Isaias was the one who opened the gate—and the first thing he told me was that I have to shut my mouth, that he’s going to tell me a lot of things,” Haile recalls. “I was shocked. What’s happened to this guy? Why is he so afraid?”
The ELF had begun among Eritrean Muslims from the country’s lowlands and had few Christian highlanders like Isaias and Haile in its ranks. They had assumed it was an exemplary revolutionary organisation and were sadly disappointed. Its leadership was poor and sectarian—hostile to the Christians who joined it. Haile described the realisation as “a very dark moment for us.”
To confront this Isaias, Haile and Mussie formed a clandestine cell. Such activity was banned by the ELF and extremely dangerous. To seal their pact the three men took an oath signed in their own blood. They carved an E on their right arms—symbolizing their determination to live or die for Eritrea.
It was an act that marked Isaias out as the kind of driven revolutionary with real leadership potential. Not for him the slow climb through the ranks. Isaias would use secretive structures and personal dedication to take him to the top.
In 1967, Isaias and four others left for China to further their political and military studies. This was at the start of the Cultural Revolution and China was in ferment. President Liu Shaoqi was removed from power. Beaten and humiliated, Liu died in prison two years later. Factions of the Red Guard movement were battling for supremacy on the streets and the country was only saved from anarchy when Mao used the army to restore order.
The young Eritreans must have looked on amazed—but for someone of Isaias’s calibre there was much to grasp. Mao, an authoritarian leader, had turned his society upside down to strengthen his hold on power.
By the time Isaias returned to Sudan in 1968, the ELF was in turmoil. Isaias was sent to be political commissar of his mainly Christian home region, which surrounds Asmara. Isaias was deeply opposed to the religious segregation of the ELF and he joined a reform movement.
Its members were younger, more educated activists—including those who had been trained abroad. Isaias decided to leave the ELF, leading his group into an alliance with other breakaway factions.
Yet away from prying eyes, in the deserts of eastern Eritrea, an even more important event was taking place. This was the founding of a clandestine movement that became known simply as the People’s Party. Founded on April 4 1971, with a secret membership and a Marxist ideology, it would be the instrument through which Isaias would exercise control.
Even at this early stage he did not have things all his own way. Before Isaias could assert his supremacy he had to rebuff internal challenges. His old comrade, Mussie Tesfamikael, led a left-wing faction calling for more radical policies and more open decision-making. Mussie and his supporters met in secret late at night—earning them their nickname:menqa—the bats.
They underestimated Isaias. Denouncing his critics, he put themenqaon trial. The principle of innocent until proven guilty was reversed, becoming guilty until proven innocent. Up to eleven were jailed—some for years. Mussie and a colleague were executed.
Isaias had shown his true colors. Faced with internal challenges he was utterly ruthless, disposing of his closest associates. His supporters should have learnt from this, but few did. Instead, confronted with the exigencies of a long and bitter fight for independence, they rallied behind his charismatic leadership, suppressing concerns about his lack of accountability.
This is the background to the emergence in 1974-75 of the public movement Isaias used to lead the country to independence: the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front. Brave and resourceful, its fighters would trounce the much larger Ethiopian army, despite their foes being armed first by the United States and then the Soviet Union.
An Eritrean tank destroyed in a battle with Ethiopian troops, near Barentu, Eritrea, May 20, 2000. Eritrea fought a 30-year war for independence from Ethiopia, and clashes occasionally flare up on the border between the two countries.ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/GETTY
It was an extraordinary achievement, which owes much to its president. But he is deeply flawed, with a personality aptly summed up in a leaked diplomatic cable from former U.S. Ambassador Ronald K. McMullen, on March 5, 2009: “Isaias is an austere and narcissistic dictator whose political ballast derives from Maoist ideology fine-tuned during Eritrea’s 30-year war for independence.”
This piece is an extract fromUnderstanding Eritrea: Inside Africa’s Most Repressive State,by Martin Plaut andpublished by Hurstin October.
IT IS a birthday present he may never hear, but it reminds the world he is alive – campaigners have released a song to mark 15 years in captivity as Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak turns 52 in jail.
Arrested for reporting on a series of letters calling for advances in democracy in the African nation, Isaak has been held without trial or contact with loved ones or legal representation since he was 36.
His first birthday under incarceration came shortly after and on Thursday his latest celebration was marked by friends and family campaigning for his release. This includes brother Esayas Isaak, who lives in the family’s adopted home of Sweden, where Dawit holds joint citizenship.
Now the Sweden-based Free Dawit campaign has released an English-language song to remind the world of his plight.
Meanwhile, The National, which has agreed to take up Dawit’s case, is inviting readers to add their voices to calls for his release.
Campaigners from the Glasgow group of human rights charity Amnesty International have repeated petitioned leaders in capital city Asmara, also asking for news of Dawit’s location and condition.
Letters can be sent to President Isais Afewerki, Justice Minister Fawzia Hashim and Estifanos Habtemariam Ghebreyesus, the country’s ambassador to the UK. Emails can also be sent to the Eritrean embassy in London.
Activist Alex Jackson, who spent many years in the country and was himself detained by officials before returning to Scotland, said: “If we do nothing then we are allowing bad things to go on with impunity, with no comment.
“We know the effect letters can have. Worldwide, we have examples where the decision makers say ‘there is a large body of opinion out there that we have got to listen to’. You never know which drop will cause the dam to burst.
“There is evidence that the dam is cracking. There are signs of the Eritrean government being willing to negotiate, debate and discuss.
“They are talking to the European Union, they are talking to the United Nations. Recently they allowed the UN to inspect a prison. It was a small step but a significant one. Eritreans are the single largest group of refugees coming into the UK. That fact alone makes what happens in Eritrea significant for people here.
He added: “Even if there is no sign that the door is moving, you should keep pushing it. Maybe it will open.”
Meanwhile, the newly-released song, titled Bird Song, urges Dawit to “hold on” from his cell, where is understood to be in solitary confinement, asking: “Can you see the moonlight? Tell me, are there even windows? Do you hear bird noise?.
Recorded under the name Together For Dawit, the piece follows a Swedish-language version and features vocals by musicians from Senegal, Mali, Sweden and America and is available on YouTube, iTunes and Spotify.
Campaigners said it is “about love, being deeply missed, freedom and to speak up for those who been silenced”.
Responding, Naomi McAuliffe, Amnesty International’s Scotland Programme Director, said: “We appreciate The National highlighting the campaign to free disappeared Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak on the weekend of his birthday.
“He has been unfairly imprisoned since September 2001 after being arrested with nine other independent journalists – some of whom have died behind bars.
“Dawit Isaak has endured hunger strikes and grave illness during his time in prison but the Eritrean government refuses to confirm any details of his case.
“Amnesty Local Group activists in Scotland are campaigning for his release as well as for other journalists who have been persecuted for reporting human rights abuses. We hope National readers will join them and help us free prisoners of conscience.”
Washington D.C., Oct 27, 2016 / 06:36 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Leading religious freedom advocates called for the release of all “prisoners of conscience” worldwide on International Religious Freedom Day.
“For the sake of these and other prisoners of conscience we dare not be silent,” wrote Fr. Thomas Reese and Daniel Mark, chairman and vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in an op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“We call for their immediate release, and we ask free people everywhere to urge Pakistan, Iran, and Eritrea to release every religious prisoner of conscience they hold,” they stated.
Oct. 27 is International Religious Freedom Day. The day marks the 18th anniversary of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, a bill that helped solidify the role of religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy.
The law created an office within the State Department for international religious freedom. Additionally, it created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as “an independent, bipartisan federal body to monitor religious freedom abuses abroad and provide policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state, and Congress.”
“The rights to exercise one’s freedom of thought, conscience, and religion are fundamental human rights and bedrock American principles,” John Kirby, Assistant Secretary of State, said on Thursday. “We believe everyone deserves these freedoms.”
However, “nearly two decades later, standing for religious freedom worldwide is as important as ever,” Fr. Reese and Mark insisted, noting that billions of people worldwide “live under governments that perpetrate or tolerate serious abuses against freedom of religion or belief.”
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) defines a “prisoner of conscience” as someone “whom governments hold for reasons including those related to religion.”
Common instances of this type of imprisonment include governments jailing dissident clerics and members of non-state sanctioned faiths, and convictions on “blasphemy laws,” which in some cases don’t carry a punishment for false accusations, and which are often used to persecute religious minorities.
USCIRF’s 2016 annual report noted that “the incarceration of prisoners of conscience” still “remains astonishingly widespread, occurring in country after country” like China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan.
For instance, 80 year-old Abdul Shakoor, an Ahmadi Muslim living in Pakistan, was “falsely accused of selling to an undercover police officer an Ahmadiyya commentary on the Qur'an and other publications,” which is against the law in the country, Fr. Reese and Mark noted, adding that Shakoor received “concurrent sentences of five years and three years in prison” in January.
There is also the case of the “Baha’i Seven,” members of the Baha’i minority religious sect in Iran. Two of them were arrested in 2008 and “given 20-year sentences on false charges of espionage, propaganda against the ‘Islamic Republic,’ and establishment of an illegal administration.”
“The plight of these prisoners highlights the abysmal status of religious freedom in the countries that persecute them,” the op-ed insisted.
The U.S. can also do more for these prisoners, Fr. Reese and Mark insisted.
For instance, the State Department could “compile a comprehensive list of religious prisoners which would better enable State to advocate” for their liberation.
They added that the State Department should “follow USCIRF's long-standing recommendation to designate Pakistan a country of particular concern (CPC), marking it as one of the world's worst abusers of religious freedom.”
The CPC list identifies countries where the worst persecutions of religious freedom take place, either at the hands of the state or by non-state actors in states that do not stop the abuses.
The list is used to pressure these countries to improve their human rights records. Currently, the State Department lists Burma, China, Eritrea, North Korea, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia as CPCs.
USCIRF has recommended more countries be added to the list: Central African Republic, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Vietnam.
“As we mark International Religious Freedom Day, let us stand for the freedom of all people to practice their religion alone and in groups, in public and in private, and let the United States and the international community hold governments accountable for the protection of this inalienable human right,” Fr. Reese and Mark concluded.
