Issue No. 261

Eritrea’s Last Free Media Outlet Under Threat

Eritrea's only independent radio station is at risk of closure. Since 2009, Radio Erena– run out of a small Parisian apartment in the 13th arrondissement – has published daily news, culture and sports on the secretive Horn of Africa nation. It has been one of the few glimmers of light in Eritrea's highly repressed media environment, but the station, which broadcasts via satellite, a mobile app, and the internet, now faces funding shortages that could force it to go dark. If this were to happen, it would be a travesty, with Eritreans inside and outside of the country nearly wholly deprived of reliable, non-partisan news. And with the Asmara regime increasingly returning to the regional fore as a self-proclaimed 'kingmaker', any diminished scrutiny on the Isaias Afwerki administration should be cause for alarm.

For years, the small diasporic Eritrean collection of journalists and broadcasters backed by Reporters San Frontiers, the global NGO supporting freedom of information and press, has admirably resisted the torrent of divisive rhetoric from Asmara. In August 2012, the station came under cyber attack from the Eritrean regime, bringing it down for three weeks. It was a clear sign of just how seriously Asmara perceives Radio Erena as a threat to its firm grip over choreographed news. 

Eritrea remains one of the most isolated countries in the world, with only a fraction having access to the internet and outside information. Nevertheless, over 500,000 people in the country have been estimated to regularly listen to its two hours of daily broadcasting. With transmission via NileSat, listeners in Eritrea can tune into Radio Erena on the 11678 Mhz frequency with a vertical polarisation of SR 27500 and FEC 3/4. What is broadcast is a welcome change from the usual toxic nonsense that emanates from Eritrea's state propaganda outfits. For instance, Radio Erena has recently published several stories on the Eritrean military involvement in eastern Sudan- a poorly understood and much under-reported element of the raging war. Asmara has long ties with militias such as the Beja Congress and others, which it has increasingly accessed to provide military support for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). 

More broadly, there has been a degree of increasing coverage of Eritrea in recent years, particularly during the Tigray war, where the Eritrean Defence Forces laid waste to much of Ethiopia's northern region. Other reporting has focused on Brigade N'Hamedu-- the youth movement that has directly targeted the regime's so-called 'cultural festivals' that work to intimidate the diaspora, whitewash their crimes and raise funds for the repressive government. But since the fighting in Tigray halted in November 2022, international attention on the region and the ongoing occupation of its territory by Eritrea has been sorely missing. Moreover, analysis and news on Eritrea and what emerges from it are often haphazard and of dubious quality. Radio Erena is one of the few outlets producing consistent, accurate information from the country.

Regime officials in Asmara must surely be gleeful at the prospect of the station closing. For over 20 years, the government has sought to diminish any scrutiny of its immense human rights violations, military excursions into neighbouring states, and the lack of any democratic state-building. The definitive erasure of the limited free press in Eritrea occurred on 18 September 2001 in the aftermath of 9/11, with eyes trained on the US. Known as 'Black Tuesday,' 7 independent newspapers were banned, and 11 senior government officials who had publicly advocated for greater political freedoms and reforms were jailed. Several are thought to have died in prison. Overseen by the newly-appointed Information Minister Naizghi Kiflu, who called journalists a "bunch of rodents," all media houses were immediately instructed to cease printing. That was later revised in favour of heavily curtailed propaganda, with many arbitrary changes imposed on music and literature by his successor. Eritrea routinely ranks at the bottom or near the bottom in the Reporters San Frontieres yearly breakdown of the country's respect for press freedom. A 1 December 2023 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists also estimated that 16 journalists were currently imprisoned in Eritrea -- the highest of any African country. 

Today, the overwhelming majority of Eritreans pay little attention to the endless churn of propaganda coming out of Eri-TV, the state broadcaster that often fails to comment on seismic international events. Famously, Eri-TV chose not to cover the Arab Spring and the ousting of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, likely not to reveal to Eritreans the possibilities of mass protest and armed uprisings against long-serving dictators. Other state media, such as Hadas Eritrea and Radio Dimtsi Hafash, produce little of note, simply pumping out the talking points of Isaias and other senior government officials. 

Press freedom in the Horn of Africa is an increasingly scarce thing, with freedom of the press dwindling in both Ethiopia and Somalia, as well as devastated by the conflict in Sudan. Journalists are increasingly harassed, jailed, and killed, while disinformation and misinformation campaigns from various administrations have become ever more common, and may accelerate further yet with the advent of Artificial Intelligence. Radio Erena is needed now more than ever. This is an Eritrean regime that has been dangerously emboldened by the waning of Ethiopia as a regional hegemon— and wants to play a central, autocratic role in the trajectory of the Horn. Despite the nature of the regime having barely changed and remaining just as internally and externally violent as ever, some are increasingly sanitising Asmara, seemingly content to reengage with one of the world's most uniquely destabilising administrations. In this context, the importance of bringing the machinations of Asmara and international events to the public in Eritrea and the diaspora can hardly be overstated-- many would pay a dear price if Radio Erena were to close.

By The Ethiopian Cable Team