Emergent Eritrean Human Rights Movements: Politics, Law, and Culture in Transnational Perspective

This chapter is an exploration of emergent rights-based initiatives among Eritrean refugees, asylees and exiles in the United States, Germany, and South Africa. It draws on interview data collected either in person or via electronic communication between 2006 and 2008; primary documents and testimonials produced by new rights-based groups and actors in the Eritrean diaspora; and previous research on Eritrean transnational politics and governance. The chapter examines three specific movements that were active in the mid-2000s the Eritrean Anti-militarism Initiative (EAI) in Germany; the Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights (EMDHR) in South Africa; and the Eritrean Human Rights Action Group (EHRAG) in the U.S. Situated in an already-existing transnational social field marked by political repression and conflict, these groups sought to articulate rights concerns on three different levels. Keywords:EHRAG; EMDHR; emergent rights-based initiatives; Eritrean Anti-militarism Initiative (EAI); Eritrean transnational politics; Germany; South Africa; United States