2002: Dawit Isaak

2002

Dawit Isaak- Eritrea

Imprisoned

Dawit Isaak was born in October 1964 in what was at the time part of Ethiopia. To escape the violence of the Eritrean war of independence he went to Sweden in 1987, where he gained dual Swedish-Eritrean citizenship. When, in 1991, Eritrea gained de facto independence, Isaak returned to Eritrea.

While there, Isaak founded the country's first independent newspaper Setit working as a reporter for the publication. In 1998 a border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia sparked a fresh round of violence and Isaak again sought refuge in Sweden (this time settling his family there) for five years.

The conflict had provoked a great deal of criticism of the Eritrean government and in 2001, an open letter signed by fifteen government ministers calling for democratic reform was delivered to the government. The letter (along with general commentary) was covered in the independent Eritrean media including Setit.
In September 2001, Isaak and many of the country's leading journalists were imprisoned without charge in a government crackdown on the independent media. The journalists were subjected to harsh treatment including torture and four of Isaak's colleagues would later die in prison.

In November that year the Swedish local consul held a brief meeting with Isaak in jail. Later, in April 2002, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that Isaak had been hospitalized suffering from injuries sustained through his torture. In November 2005 he was released from prison, but hopes that he would be allowed to return to Sweden were dashed when he was re-arrested two days later.

Dawit Isaak remains in prison. In February 2009 it was reported that he was "seriously ill". In June that year President Isaias Afeworki of Eritrea was asked about Isaak and reportedly responded: "No, we don't release him. We don't take [him] to trial. We know how to deal with him and others like him and we have our own ways of dealing with that."

In 2009, the Swedish PEN Centre collected over 20,000 signatures calling for Dawit Isaaks release.