Eritrean Migrants Employ Freedom of Speech in Israel, Protest Against Repressive East African Regime

Hundreds of Eritrean asylum seekers demonstrated near Tel Aviv on Tuesday in support of a UN probe into the regime of their native country, chanting “Dictator Out!” and “Viva Geneva!”

The Eritrean regime is considered one of the world’s most repressive. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights says its president, Issaias Afeworki, is guilty of committing crimes against humanity and should be tried in an international court.

“We have come to give our support to this commission of inquiry, which has cast light on a fact: Eritrea is a dictatorship where people are killed or disappear,” Bluts Iyassu, one of the event organizers, told AFP.

The protest took place in front of the European Union embassy in Ramat Gan in the Tel Aviv District.

Afeworki is “an absolute dictator, he’s a killer,” stated Iyassu, a former teacher who says he spent several years as a political prisoner in the east African state and has been seeking asylum in Israel for three years, where he enjoys freedom of expression and democracy.

“For a march like this one [in Tel Aviv], we would already be dead in Eritrea,” Iyassu declared.

By: United with Israel Staff
(With files from AFP)

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