Human Rights

Is Dawit Isaak Still Alive?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In a rare interview in June with France’s RFI (Radio France Internationale), Eritrea’s Foreign Minister, Osman Saleh, spoke with RFI’s Anthony Lattier about Eritrea’s “political prisoners,” and he specifically revealed that one who has been in prison since 2001, the journalist Dawit Isaak, is still alive.

It was the first official Eritrean acknowledgement of Isaak’s existence since 2009, when the nation’s president, Isaias Afwerki, ominously told a Swedish journalist that Eritrea “knows what to do with” Isaak. Osman Saleh told Lattier that Isaak “is alive, he’s alive” and that all of the nation’s “political prisoners” are alive and well. He rebuffed any suggestion that any independent agency verify this as a fact, however.
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On Trial for Tweets, Part 3: Nabeel Rajab

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

From the day he was arrested on June 13, Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, has been kept in solitary detention in conditions so squalid that outside observers have verified the “toilet and shower are unclean, unhygienic, and filled with potentially disease-carrying sludge.”

The start of his trial for comments he posted online has been delayed twice: it was scheduled to start on July 12, delayed until August 2, and then on August 2, it was delayed until September 5. No reason was offered regarding this week’s delay, once again.

A request from his lawyers to release him pending the start of the trial has been rejected. Rajab remains in pretrial custody.
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Thanks for the Compliment

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The compliment arrived in the best manner for compliments to arrive: unexpected.

An article posted this morning on the website of the human rights advocacy group Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) used some of my reporting.
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