URGENT APPEAL: Save Detained Eritrean Student In South Africa

By Eritrean students and residents in Pretoria, South Africa. - Feb 03, 2004

The second court hearing of Samuel Andeberhan Habtemariam was conducted on Monday 2nd of February 2004. As we all know, after 5 months of silence, the regime?s ambassador is using different tactics of abuses and intimidation to disrupt the life of this innocent Eritrean in the pretext of illegal immigrant and fraud, which is totally far from reality. Currently, the South African authorities have been denying constantly Samuel?s application of a bail for things that are not reasonably explained. The court hearing is therefore postponed to the 13th of February 2004. Recently, we have reached that the police officers are intimidating Samuel to confess for crimes he didn?t commit by arguing his application for asylum has been rejected by the Department of Home Affairs. However, Samuel has a legal asylum seeker permit that expires in March 2004. Likewise, it should be noticed that the Regime?s ambassador has nullified the student?s passport and visa while he was in detention in August 2003. Of course the presumption behind this entire conspiracy of the regime?s ambassador is to pave ways for deporting the innocent student to Eritrea where he can face the ultimate death upon arrival.

At this juncture, we call upon all Eritreans, concerned parties, and human right organizations all over the world to pay your undivided attention and work hard to save the life of this innocent student before it is too late.

Eritrean students and residents in Pretoria, South Africa.