It was an ordinary Sunday morning in 2001 when two large men, wearing similar suits, arrived at the entrance of a home in Eritrea. A young girl named Betlehem opened the door. The two men asked to see her father.
Mr. Isaak, who was also a playwright and novelist, had always dreamed of freedom and democracy in his homeland. The small country in the Horn ofhad fought tenaciously to secede from Ethiopia, finally winning independence in 1993. He became the co-owner of Eritrea’s first independent newspaper, called Setit. But the newspaper was targeted by a harsh crackdown in 2001 when it dared to publish an open letter criticizing the government.Harassment of journalists by security agents was common, but Mr.
As his imprisonment dragged on, Mr. Isaak began urging his family to leave the country to avoid a worse fate.It was an agonizing decision, but they finally moved to Sweden, where Mr. Isaak had become a citizen in the 1990s after fleeing earlier persecution. “Their pain and plight are a standing reminder of injustice and a compelling call to action,” a coalition of international human rights groups said in a statement on World Press Freedom Day in May. They called for targeted sanctions to be imposed against senior Eritrean officials responsible for the imprisonment of journalists.
Mr. Isaak’s daughter, Betlehem, is now a university graduate with a journalism degree, and the 29-year-old mother of a young son. Her long struggle for her father’s freedom, and for the human rights of the Eritrean people, has become almost a full-time job for her. But it has inflicted a heavy toll. Her therapist tells her that she has been suffering trauma for many years because of the endless fight.