Dear Members and friends,

You may have seen a number of newspaper articles that depicts Eritrea as an Islamic country where Christians are being pressed to convert to Islam.  

The Express on Sunday stated in an article published on the 12 February 2006 that hardline Muslims in Eritrea have ordered a clampdown on the lifestyles of Christians in a "modern day holy war".  They further added that the action comes as tensions increase between Islamic fundamentalists and the West, with riots over the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed.  Release International is quoted in the article.

What is also appalling about these anti-Eritrea elements is the way in which they are trying to link the religion issue with that of the border conflict.  For example in this same article it is stated that “the Ertrean regime has come in for strong condemnation from the United Nations”.  It added, “last December UN Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned Eritrea’s decision to expel members of its mission and the Security Council endorsed his stand”.  This of course is an attempt to make Eritrea look so bad so that the story of “hardline Moslems clamping down on Christians” can be more palatable.  The stories have to sound gruesome so that people are compelled into action.

A week later in the same newspaper, a reader responded to the article by stating, “it seems to me that Muslim-run countries (meaning Eritrea) show no tolerance of any other religion but their own."  I am Jewish and I was absolutely outraged, she added.  This shows that when a false story is repeated time and again by those who have axes to grind against Eritrea, it begins to crystallize and appears to be true unless it is nipped in the bud. 

Nipping in the bud is exactly what AGE attempted to do when the Church of England Newspaper published a story on the 7th of April 2006 under a title "Eritrea pressuring Christians to convert".  The article stated that Christians in Eritrea are facing increasing pressure to convert to Islam and indicated their Source as ‘Open Doors’.  

When we contacted Open Doors, they categorically denied that they have ever issued such a statement.  JH Andrews of Open Doors Communications Team stated, “we at Open Doors are not aware of any pressure on Christians in Eritrea to convert to Islam and although we provided the paper with the rest of the information contained in the article, we are at a loss to understand why the Church of England newspaper included this first sentence or which organisation provided them with that statement.”

Following a number of e-mails and repeated phone calls from members of AGE, the Editor of The Church of England newspapers, Colin Blakely accepted that a mistake was made and this is what he had to say: “Thank you for your correspondence concerning our story of April 7 on Eritrea. I have now spoken with the reporter, who is very apologetic about the mistakes he made. We will be publishing an apology in the next edition.”

We at AGE do wish to focus on matters of common interest that unite Eritreans and benefit the country as a whole.  We fight all injustices committed against Eritrea in whatever shape or form it comes. We try to avoid issues that could lead to misunderstandings among Eritreans and where we lack an in depth knowledge of the subject matter. However, in line with our constitution, we will act when we see a deliberate attempt being made to harm and tarnish the image of our country by disseminating malicious and false allegations.

Our Media Watch team have taken large Media outlets to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and have achieved a result by forcing them to publish an apology.  Thanks to the effort of our Media Watch team, the Editor of the Church of England Newspaper has kindly agreed to publish an apology having investigated that the report was false.

We ask all our members to be vigilant and active in monitoring the media and if you come across an article published in the UK about Eritrea that you can prove to be factually wrong, please report it to our Media Watch team on age@eritrea.co.uk.