Summary

The present report is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 44/1, in which the Council extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea and requested the mandate holder to present a report on the implementation of the mandate to the Council at its forty-seventh session.

The report is based upon the observations of the Special Rapporteur and information gathered from a variety of other sources. In the report, the Special Rapporteur provides an overview of the human rights concerns in Eritrea, and outlines recent developments and some of the human rights challenges in the country, including incommunicado detention, arbitrary arrest and detention, inhumane prison conditions, indefinite national/military service, lack of freedom of expression, opinion, association, religious belief and movement, lack of the rule of law and the serious human rights violations in the Tigray region of Ethiopia committed by Eritrean troops. In the light of the five benchmarks for progress set out in the report of his predecessor, 1 the Special Rapporteur addresses a number of recommendations to the Government of Eritrea and to the international community with a view to improving the situation of human rights in the country.