Eritrea authorities arrest critics - (19.09.2001)

Eritrea authorities arrest critics

Reuters (19.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (20.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Eritrean authorities arrested six leaders of the country's reform movement on Tuesday and suspended independent newspapers, diplomatic sources said.

The six were members of a group of 15 high-ranking officials who made a rare gesture of public criticism of the government in May by signing an open letter calling for greater democracy, the sources said.

Reports of the arrests came as the government announced it was temporarily suspending all independent newspapers, saying they had broken press laws.

"They have time and again put at risk the unity and best interest of the country in the issuing of their newspapers," said a broadcast announcing the closures on state-run radio.

The independent press has played a growing role in fostering open dissent in Eritrea, where President Isayas Afewerki has ruled since Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after a 30-year liberation struggle.

The radio said the government would allow law-abiding papers to resume printing, but did not give a timeframe.

Analysts say cracks have emerged in the upper echelons of the ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice in recent years, fuelled partly by disagreements over Eritrea's conduct of a two-year border war with Ethiopia.

The conflict ended with cease-fire in June last year after Ethiopia seized large swathes of territory and both sides are estimated to have suffered tens of thousands of casualties.

Diplomatic sources named one of the arrested as Petros Solomon, a former interior minister who was head of national security during Eritrea's war of independence.