Eritrea Urged to Release Orthodox Patriarch Under House Arrest for 10 Years

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor Saturday, January 23, 2016

Princeton professor Robert George tells those in attendance at the In Defense of Christians press conference in Washington, Sept. 10, 2014, that more voices need to be heard of American and European Christians to urge their governments to remedy the atrocities facing Middle East Christians. | (PHOTO: THE CHRISTIAN POST/SONNY HONG)

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has urged the authoritarian government of Eritrea to release Patriarch Abune Antonio, who was illegally removed as head of the Eritrean Orthodox Church and remains in detention for 10 years.

USCIRF Chairman Dr. Robert P. George earlier this week called on the Eritrean government to "immediately release" Patriarch Antonios and "allow him to return to his rightful position" that he held at the time of his removal and detention in January 2006.

Antonios, who remains under house arrest incommunicado at an undisclosed location, was detained after he called for the release of political prisoners and refused to excommunicate 3,000 parishioners who opposed the government at the time.

In 2007, the government made Bishop Dioscoros of Mendefera as the head of the Orthodox Church.

"This anniversary should remind us all that the Eritrean people are denied the fundamental, universal human right of religious freedom," said George in a statement. "The Eritrean government sends those whom they imprison for their religious beliefs to the harshest prisons and subjects them to the cruelest punishments. We must continue to shine the light on these prisoners of conscience until they are free."

USCIRF has recommended, and the State Department has designated, Eritrea as a "country of particular concern," for its "systematic, ongoing and egregious" violations of religious freedom since 2004.

Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki, who has ruled Eritrea since 1993, is a member of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, an Oriental Orthodox church, in the capital city of Asmara – belonging to the largest among only three Christian denominations allowed to function in the country. However, Afewerki is known to be an alcoholic and an autocrat.

Eritrea, one of Africa's smallest countries, has also jailed, tortured and killed numerous evangelical protestant Christians over the past years.

Afewerki, the leader of the ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice party, restricts religious freedom out of his fear that religion will mobilize people, which could be a threat to his hold on power, according to the World Evangelical Alliance's Religious Liberty Commission.

Particularly after a war with Ethiopia from 1998 to 2000 – which cost Eritrea around 70,000 lives – Afewerki, who led the country to independence from Ethiopia, became over-suspicious and a lot more autocratic.

The government also claims to fear that that religious freedom will lead to evangelism by Christian groups and thereby cause social tensions which can be exploited by "outside forces" to destabilize the nation.