Eritrea: “Isaak prepared for an Ethiopian invasion”

  National News | 2010-08-01

 A representative for the Eritrean President comments now for the first time on the reasons for keeping the Swedish / Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak in prison without a trial.

According to the presidency; Isaak prepared for an Ethiopian invasion of the capital Asmara and therefore a trial was not needed.

– Everyone accused of a crime in Eritrea gets a trial but this case was exceptional due to the severe nature of the crime said Yemena Gebrab, adviser of the president according to the daily Dagens Nyheter.

Gebrab was in Stockholm this weekend to visit an Eritrean Festival at Järvafältet in the north-east part of the city. Critics, among them the municipal commissionaire for sport and culture in Stockholm Madeleine Sjöstedt have urged for a boycott of the festival. They claim that money gathered at the festival goes directly to the regime. A representative for the festival confirms this to the Swedish television but says that even though the money is canalized through the Eritrean state; it still reaches the claimed target group, i.e. orphans in Eritrea.

Sjöstedt, Dawit Isaak’s brother Esayas Isaak and Nair Fesseha, spokesperson for an Eritrean oposition organisation in Sweden, writes in a debate article in Expressen that the festival is a way of trying to create an opinion against the UN-sanctions against the Eritrean regime. Despite the sanctions, there is no list of individuals connected to the regime who are not permitted to travel abroad. The authors urge the Swedish governmen to ban representaives for the regime to enter Sweden. 

source : stockholmnews

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