The government of Eritrea is responding to growing accusations from multiple sides in the international arena with reference to the human rights issue in the country and participation in the Tigray conflict.
On Oct. 29 at the United Nations in Geneva Mohamed Babiker, Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights, called on Eritrea to “release children, political prisoners and the hundreds of people who have disappeared or been imprisoned for their beliefs, allowing them to exercise their rights of religious freedom.”
Statements that generated an immediate retort from Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Meskel, who said that SR Babiker had “exceeded his authority to condemn Eritrea,” demonstrating how it presents a declared willingness on the part of some states to activate a veritable “witch hunt.”
Still the Ministry of Information’s website, on the other hand, published two documents devoted to the conflict in Tigray and the claims of the Holocaust Museum in Washington.
The first document once again contains the Eritrean interpretation of the genesis of the conflict in Tigray, blaming the TPLF entirely for it and listing the main elements likely to support Asmara’s position. No mention, as usual, on the merits of the accusations made on the international level of participation in the conflict (https://shabait.com/2022/10/26/the-tplf-and-a-commitment-to-peace/).
The second document, on the other hand, is the text of the letter sent by the Eritrean Embassy in Washington to the Holocaust Museum, in response to a communiqué issued by the museum itself last October 25, which referred to “the increased risk of genocide and mass atrocities in the Tigray region of Ethiopia” (https://shabait.com/2022/10/27/open-letter-to-holocaust-museum/). Once again, the words of the museum statement are referred to as “defamatory accusations” propounded by the TPLF.
