In a powerful call for global intervention, Betlehem Isaak, the daughter of journalist Dawit Isaak, has demanded that the international community take urgent action regarding the human rights abuses taking place in Eritrea. Speaking at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, Isaak emphasized the need for the world to “wake up” to the suffering under President Isaias Afwerki‘s brutal regime.
Her father, Dawit Isaak, has been imprisoned for more than 23 years without charge, ever since his arrest in September 2001. A co-founder of Setit, Eritrea’s first independent newspaper, Isaak was one of two dozen political dissidents, journalists, and former government officials detained in a purge of Afwerki’s critics. Despite being Amnesty International’s prisoner of conscience, Isaak’s plight, along with that of others detained in similar circumstances, has drawn limited global attention.
Isaak’s continued detention highlights Eritrea’s ongoing crackdown on freedom of speech and dissent. According to Reporters Without Borders, Isaak and his colleagues are the longest-held journalists in the world, a grim testament to the regime’s repressive practices.
Betlehem Isaak’s plea underscores the urgent need for international action to end the systematic abuses in Eritrea and bring global pressure to bear on a regime that has silenced critics for decades.
