Your memories of that day may not be as distinct as those of two pastors in Africa. It was in the early morning hours of May 23, 2004, that Kiflu Gebremeskel and Haile Nayzgi were arrested at their homes in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea.
Twenty years later, the two men are still in prison. These two pastors are among the more than 350 Christians currently imprisoned in Eritrea, including more than 80 who have been arrested in the first five months of this year.
Haile and Kiflu never had a trial. In fact, they’ve never even been charged with a crime. They weren’t sentenced to prison; they just disappeared into a prison system that includes torture, dark underground cells and metal shipping containers used as makeshift prisons. These primitive “prisons” often have minimal ventilation and no running water. And there is no appeals process.
How would a prisoner appeal a verdict that doesn’t exist from a trial that never happened?
Twenty years.
Two years ago, I received a bittersweet text message — a picture of Haile’s daughter wearing a graduation gown and proudly holding her university diploma. Pastor Haile was in prison that day. The picture made me think of all the significant moments he and Kiflu have missed in the lives of their wives and children in the past 20 years.
What milestones would you have missed if you had spent the last 20 years in a prison cell?
For me, the list of milestones is long: my sons’ high school and college graduations, both of my sons’ weddings, a 25th anniversary trip with my wife, the birth of my first grandchild, my parents’ 50th and my in-laws’ 55th anniversaries, Christmas dinners, and many birthday celebrations. I would have missed all these things and many more if I had been in prison the past 20 years instead of raising my sons, loving my wife and living my life.
Twenty years in prison for the “crime” of being a pastor is an obscene offense to human rights and human decency. And religious freedom isn’t the only liberty trampled on by the Eritrean government of President Isaias Afwerki. Eritrea is ranked dead last in journalistic freedom as well, according to The
