RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION VICTIM STILL HARASSED BY GSE

C O N F I D E N T I A L ASMARA 000902 SIPDIS SIPDIS LONDON, PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHERS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/26/2017 TAGS: PHUM PGOV SOCI KIRF ER SUBJECT: RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION VICTIM STILL HARASSED BY GSE Classified By: CDA Jennifer A. McIntyre, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) An Embassy locally employed staff member (LES) continues to be harassed by officials of the Government of the State of Eritrea (GSE),following his July arrest on religious grounds and release a month later. A member of the unregistered Full Gospel Pentecostal Church, the GSE informed the employee that his release was conditional upon his signing a statement in which he agreed to recant his faith and to choose a "customary" Eritrean religious faith (See reftel). The employee reported to Emboff that on November 19, GSE officials (presumably agents from the Office of National Security) came to his home and asked him why he continued to attend church and proselytize after signing the form that secured his release. The officials asked if he had renounced his religion, to which he responded "no". The officials then confiscated his bible and a video tape of a U.S. Protestant preacher's sermons. The employee told Emboff that he was taking religious correspondence courses with a U.S. institution; however the GSE employees at the post office had refused to allow him to retrieve items from his post office box. The LES member also expressed concern about two of his friends who had been arrested recently and said that one of them may have passed on information about him to the Office of National Security. ¶2. (C) Comment: This report, sadly, represents yet another case of continuing repression and harassment of Eritreans who wish to practice different religions. End Comment. MCINTYRE