Ruth Simon, a correspondent for the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), was arrested on April 25, 1997. She was the first journalist to be arrested in Eritrea since its independence from Ethiopia was formalized in a referendum in 1993.
Simon won CPJ’s 1998 International Press Freedom Award in absentia.
She was arrested after reporting that President Isaias Afewerki said at a seminar in the capital Asmara that Eritrean soldiers were fighting alongside rebels in neighboring Sudan.
At the time, Eritrea was hosting Sudanese opposition groups fighting President Omar al-Bashir, who took power in a coup in 1989, At the time, Eritrea was hosting Sudanese opposition groups fighting President Omar al-Bashir, who took power in a 1989 coup, and held on until his ouster in a 2019 coup.
Afewerki personally ordered Simons imprisonment for "publishing false information."
Simon, an Eritrean citizen, was responsible for the clandestine publications of the secessionist Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), which fought a 30-year war to take control of Eritrean territory, eventually overthrowing Ethiopia’s Derg junta in 1991, along with a coalition of Ethiopia rebel groups.
She was also editor-in-chief of BANA, the publication of the Association for the Reintegration of Eritrean Women Guerrilla Fighters after the war for independence.
Following Simon's arrest, AFP published a response by the central committee of the ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice — the successor to the EPLF — which described Simon's original report as a "gross distortion" of the president's statement and repeated its denial of involvement in Sudan's civil war.
Although magazines and newspapers were beginning to appear, the Eritrean media was mainly controlled by the government.
On May 11, 1998, Afewerki announced that Simon would face trial and that the state intended to sue AFP for using a "so-called agent" to disseminate false information.
In reply to CPJ's letter protesting Simon's arrest, the foreign ministry said Simon's actions violated the national press law, which states that "any journalist who misinforms the public or any institution is liable to the damage he/she may cause as a result."
Without elaborating on the charges against Simon, the ministry said her arrest was a “purely legal issue which does not require or allow any kind of intervention from any comer."
Simon was married and the mother of two children, the youngest of whom was six months old at the time of her arrest.
On December 28, 1998, Simon was released from prison.