Dawit Isaak

On Wednesday, the Swedish newspaper Expressen published what it described as an exclusive interview with Ali Abdu–Eritrea’s long-time information minister, government spokesman, and censor-in-chief–who vanished from public view in November. The piece confirmed that Ali had gone into exile, but it shed no light on the whereabouts and well-being of more than two dozen imprisoned…

Journalist Dawit Isaac, co-founder of Eritrea’s now-defunct leading newspaper Setit, has spent nearly 10 years in one of the reclusive Red Sea nation’s secret prisons with no charges ever placed against him. Isaac’s location and health status are currently unknown, as are those of at least 16 other journalists who CPJ believes are also being…

This week, as CPJ finalized its annual list of journalists imprisoned for their work, my thoughts turned to Eritrea and this photo. Taken in 2000, near the end of a two-year border war with neighboring Ethiopia and during the heyday of a burgeoning private press movement in Africa’s youngest nation, the photo shows the staff…