Eritrea: Little said or heard of jailed journalists

Good news about media freedom in Eritrea is rare, so it's understandable that delight and relief greeted the announcement last November that Isaac Dawit, an Eritrean journalist with Swedish nationality, had been released after four years in prison. But days after the news broke, Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu told the Agence France-Presse news agency that Dawit had merely been released for hospital tests, and was going directly back to prison. Described by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as one of the world's worst jailers of journalists, Eritrea has at least 13 reporters in prison.