Date: 01 Dec 2009
On the morning of 30 November 2009, the Working Group on the UPR examined the situation of human rights in Eritrea. Eritrea was represented by the Economic Advisor for the Ministry of National Development, Mr Girmai Abraham. The majority of African States participating in the discussion took the opportunity to praise Eritrea for its commitment to human rights and their achievements within their current reality. However, a number of other States expressed concern about the following issues:
The international community is on the verge of meting out a collective punishment on the Eritrean political and military leadership. The proposed UN sanctions will be the harshest ever imposed on an African nation in recent memory. The Eritrean government says it is not concerned.
The EU parliament is increasing the pressure on the Eritrean government to free Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak. The president of the European parliament is now demanding that he will be released along with the other journalists arrested in the country in 2001. 
On Sunday an opposition leader in Eritrea told AFP that “Iran is using Eritrea as a base to provide weapons to Shi’ite insurgents in Yemen.””They (rebels) are receiving their arms from Iran through Eritrea,” Bashir Eshaq, head of external relations for the opposition Eritrean Democratic Alliance, told AFP in an interview.
ASMARA (Reuters) – Eritrea said on Thursday it would not be drawn into another war of words after neighbouring Djibouti became the latest nation to accuse the Red Sea state of supporting rebels and spreading chaos in the region.
Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) has extended a line of credit of $20 million to the African state of Eritrea for financing eligible goods and services, machinery and equipment, including consultancy services from India, the Reserve Bank of India said in a release.
CAIRO (Reuters) – Djibouti’s foreign minister accused neighbouring Eritrea on Sunday of arming and training militias to carry out sabotage in the tiny Horn of Africa country, and of fomenting chaos in the region.
One of the frustrations with which Africa’s friends have had to repeatedly cope over the years has been the seemingly utter incapacity of the African leaders to deal with their more problematic peers: witness the annual African Union (AU) summit’s literal embrace of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe last year on the very morrow of a farcical “re-election” criticised the pan-African organisation’s own monitors or, with a few honourable exceptions, its circling of the wagons around Sudanese despot Umar Hassan al-Bashir earlier this year after the International Criminal Court indicted him for crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the humanitarian disaster in Darfur. 
