PEN Eritrea Welcomes Biniam’s Release
According to a BBC News report, Biniam ‘Cobra’ Solomon has been released after 15 years in prison without formal charges or a trial. Biniam was arrested in Asmara in 2011 and has been kept incommunicado for a decade and a half.
According to family members cited in the BBC report, he had no contact with his family and relatives throughout his years in custody and received only occasional medical treatment. Biniam became widely known in Eritrea in the late 1990s for his sharp, humorous political cartoons. His work appeared in several Eritrean newspapers during a brief period when independent media outlets operated in the country before the official ban in September 2001. Alongside his work as a cartoonist, he also taught physics at a secondary school in Asmara.
Cobra’s cartoons offered a social and political commentary during a time of uncertainty in Eritrea’s public life. Biniam published three collections of his cartoons before he forcibly disappeared.
While welcoming his release, PEN Eritrea emphasises that dozens of Eritrean writers and journalists have been detained without due process since 2001, and it calls for their immediate release.
