Tesfay Ghebreab, also known as Gomora, who contributed to the privately owned Setit newspaper in addition to his role as a Ministry of Foreign Affairs director, was arrested in September 2001. He was one of about 13 journalists taken into custody in September and October 2001 in a government crackdown on the independent press.
Like most of those arrested, his whereabouts, health, and legal status remain unknown as the Eritrean government has repeatedly failed to provide credible answers to questions about imprisoned journalists or to allow visits from family or lawyers. The exact date of his arrest is unknown.
Tesfay used to write for Setit at least twice a month on a freelance basis, sometimes under a pen name, the publication’s former editor Aaron Berhane told CPJ. Aaron, who died in exile in 2021, said Tesfay’s arrest could have been connected to articles he wrote calling for negotiations to resolve the political crisis between conservatives and reformers in the ruling party.
Tesfay’s articles in Setit may have been interpreted as endorsing dissidents, Abraham Zere, the then-executive director of the free speech organization PEN Eritrea, told CPJ in 2018.
Over the years, Eritrean officials have offered vague and inconsistent explanations for the 2001 arrests — accusing journalists of involvement in anti-state conspiracies in connection with foreign intelligence, skirting military service, and violating press regulations. Officials, at times, even denied that the journalists existed.
Meanwhile, shreds of often unverifiable, second- or third-hand information smuggled out by people fleeing into exile suggested that seven of the journalists arrested in 2001 have died in custody. CPJ confirmed in 2007 that one of the journalists, Fesshaye “Joshua” Yohannes, died in secret detention.
In a 2016 interview about the journalists and politicians arrested in 2001, Eritrean Foreign Affairs Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed said "all of them are alive" and "in good hands" and would face trial "when the government decides” since some were "political prisoners."
In 2018, Paulos Netabay, director of the state-owned Eritrean News Agency, told CPJ that the journalists’ arrest in 2001 was connected to “acts of subversion and treason by some former politicians” and that the cases had been “submitted and decided by the National Assembly.”
In a May 2024 report, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, expressed concern about prolonged, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances and said that the Eritreans arrested in 2001 were the “longest-detained journalists in the world,” imprisoned for almost 23 years without charges or trial.
As of late 2024, CPJ had yet to receive any replies to emails requesting comment from information minister Yemane Ghebremeskel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Justice.