Media watchdog demands Eritrea free 15 journalists

NEW YORK, Sep 16 (Reuters) A media watchdog has urged Eritrea to free 15 journalists held for five years after a media crackdown in what it termed Africa's most repressive country.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the tiny Horn of Africa country has held the 15 incommunicado since 2001 13 of them in jail, two in forced military service.

''Not only is the government continuing to hold these prisoners without charge or trial, it is withholding even the most basic information about them, including whether they are still alive,'' CPJ's executive director Joel Simon said.

Africa's youngest nation won formal independence from its giant neighbour Ethiopia in 1993 after a three-decade insurgency led by President Isaias Afwerki.

CPJ said Eritrea under Afwerki had become ''Africa's most repressive country'' and the fourth leading jailer of journalists in the world after China, Cuba and Ethiopia.

''Eritrea's blatant disregard for human rights and due process makes it the worst jailer of journalists in Africa,'' Simon said.

Asmara denies rights criticism from abroad, saying the world has long been prejudiced against it and in favour of the Horn of Africa's main power Ethiopia.

CPJ quoted presidential spokesman Yemane Ghebremeskel as telling the organisation the journalists were jailed not for their writing but because they ''were involved in acts against the national interest of the state''.

The 15 were netted in a crackdown on dissidents and independent media that shut down the country's private press in September 2001, CPJ said.

REUTERS SY BST1630