Sweden – BLT, July 28, 2025
The Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak was 36 years old when he was arrested in Eritrea during a crackdown on independent media. This past fall, he turned 60—still imprisoned in an Eritrean jail after 20 years, never formally charged with any crime, without a trial, and without his family knowing where he is or how he is doing. His daughter, Betlehem Isaak, who was only eight the last time she saw her father, is now an adult with children of her own.
In June, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Eritrea called on all states to investigate Eritrea’s extensive human rights violations and apply maximum pressure on the country. In an op-ed in Dagens Nyheter (July 24), representatives of Reporters Without Borders, Swedish PEN, and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights highlighted Sweden’s passivity in the case.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office doesn’t even seem willing to try.
After the most recent complaint filed in 2020, the Prosecutor’s Office claimed it was impossible to proceed because Eritrea would not cooperate. Ten years ago, they said an investigation would hinder the Foreign Ministry’s efforts to free Isaak, when Isaak’s lawyers filed a complaint of crimes against humanity against Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and several of his officials. So they dropped it.
