International Affairs Forum: The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council set up the Commission of Inquiry on the situation of Human Rights in Eritrea (COIE) in June 2014 and then renewed its mandate in 2015. What kind of conditions and concerns prompted the 2014 formation of the COIE, its investigations, and its subsequent renewal?

Sheila B. Keetharuth: The Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea (COIE) was established on June 27, 2014 by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) by means of Resolution 26/24,1 that is, the same resolution renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea. The setting up of the COIE was the HRC’s response to the Eritrean authorities’ denial that the human rights violations were committed in the country as reported in the two previous reports of the Special Rapporteur; [and] the non-cooperation of Eritrea in terms of implementation of human rights–related recommendations and civil society advocacy calls for improvements in human rights, release of political prisoners, and an end to the egregious human rights violations in the context of the indefinite national service. Abiding by its mandate, in June 2015, when the COIE presented its findings, it did not specifically investigate whether international crimes occurred in Eritrea. However, the information collected suggested that human rights violations are perpetrated on such a wide scale, with the possibility that crimes against humanity may have been committed in Eritrea. Its mandate was renewed to specifically further investigate this aspect.

IA Forum: What are the COIE's investigative findings, to date?

Sheila B. Keetharuth: The COIE collected more than 550 testimonies and 160 submissions, allowing victims and witnesses the opportunity to give full accounts of the abuse they endured. The COIE was able to corroborate the findings of the Special Rapporteur in much detail. On the basis of this body of evidence, the COIE found that systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations have been and are still being committed in Eritrea under the authority of the government and that some of these violations may constitute crimes against humanity. In the COIE’s June 2015 report,2 there is sufficient detail about how the government has created and sustains repressive systems to control, silence, and isolate individuals in the country, depriving them of their fundamental freedoms. It shows how information collected on peoples’ activities, their supposed intentions, and even conjectured thoughts is used to rule by fear in a country where individuals are routinely arbitrarily arrested and detained in the vast network of prisons and detention centers; tortured; or disappeared. It shows how under the pretext of defending the integrity of the state and ensuring its self-sufficiency, Eritreans are subject to a system of national service, which in effect is forced labor, [and] how they are effectively abused and exploited for indefinite periods of time under the guise of reconstruction of the country.

IA Forum: Eritreans are third only to Syrians and Afghans in the current wave of mixed migrants entering Europe. The COIE's report points to the country's "gross human rights violations" as a primary factor instigating people to leave the country. Can you please give further clarifications?

Sheila B. Keetharuth: In its report, the COIE showed how the initial promises of democracy and rule of law, incarnated in the never-implemented 1997 Constitution, were progressively suppressed and then extinguished by the government. The government maintains an extensive spying and surveillance system targeting individuals within the country and in the diaspora. It employs all means, including harassment, intimidation, and the abusive use of a coupon system originally created to allow access to subsidized goods in government shops, to collect information about Eritreans. Pervasive spying and surveillance in Eritrea go beyond the needs of national security or crime prevention and are arbitrary.

The COIE was able to document how the Eritrean authorities intentionally use the conditions and regime of detention as means of torture or in support of other methods to increase the pain and suffering of inmates to achieve a specific objective. In fact, [the] harshest conditions and the strictest regimes of detention are deliberately employed in a number of situations, including to punish those suspected of being a threat to national security, traitors, [or] suspects of “cross-border” crimes; or during the investigative phase of detention, with the intention of pushing the person to self-incriminate himself or herself, extract a confession or information, or force believers of specific religious faiths to recant their faith.

With regards to forced labor, the COIE was able to document that its use goes far beyond the national service. The use of forced labor is so prevalent in Eritrea that all sectors of the economy rely on it and all Eritreans are likely to be subjected to it at one point in their lives. Many Eritreans, including under-age students, are subjected to forced labor outside the national service.

The [government] control of the population, [exercised via] restrictions on freedom of movement, freedom of expression, [and] freedom of religious belief, also affects the population negatively. Many young people who have themselves experienced violations of their human rights and have also witnessed the rights of others being violated say that because of all the aforementioned detailed violations and the personal experiences of their parents and siblings, they feel they do not have a future in Eritrea and are therefore ready to cross the desert and the sea to find a safe haven where their rights will be respected. Older people leave because they have been subjected to detention or have been asked to pay fines because family members have fled the country. The reasons inciting people to leave are numerous, but most are linked to 

Read this rest of the interview and more in the latest issue of  International Affairs Forum, focusing on migration and statelessness, by clicking HERE.