Media's Negative Depiction of Eritrea is based on Lies: Canadian Human Rights Lawyer

Lloyd Lipsett, an international human rights lawyer

Media's Negative Depiction of Eritrea is based on Lies: Lloyd Lipsett

During a June 5th subcommittee hearing on International Human Rights in Canada, Lloyd Lipsett, a human rights lawyer who visited Eritrea on two occasions, informed government officials that the human rights violations and negative characterization that the media reports of Eritrea does not align with the investigation he conducted in the country. Lipsett said:

"First, there are some differences between external reports and from what I was able to observe on the ground. Frankly, I expected a more militarized and overtly repressive environment than I witnessed in Asmara and at the mine (Nevsun's Bisha mine) site. I acknowledge my investigation did not delve into civil and political rights issues that are reported about Eritrea. But my first and second impressions of the country, and particularly of the mine site, do not concord with the characterization of Eritrea as the North Korea of Africa."

When Nina Grewal, an MP of the Conservative Party asked Lipsett to expand on his findings of the discrepancies he witnessed with the media's negative characterization and reports of human rights issues with the realities in Eritrea, Lipsett explained:

"As I mentioned, I have read many of these reports before going to Eritrea, and I expected to see more overt oppression as you see in other one party states, and I didn't see that. And the people who i've spoken to, both formally and informally, did not observe the traits of people who were fearful."  

Despite numerous tourists, journalists, diplomats and human rights observers who visited Eritrea drawing similar conclusions as Lipsett's statements, the outrageous defamation of Eritrea in the media will go unabated largely for political reasons, which calls into question what is press freedom if these "free presses'" false accusations of certain countries always aligns with the political moods of their respective governments?

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