London: The UK-based human rights organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has called on the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments to refrain from actions that could further destabilize an already fragile Horn of Africa, following Eritrea’s conditional release of Christians who had been detained arbitrarily.
In a report shared with ACI Africa on Friday, CSW’s Director of Advocacy, Dr. Khataza Gondwe, expressed serious concern over the requirement imposed on released prisoners to sign documents renouncing their right to worship freely. “While we welcome the release of many prisoners held without due process, it is deeply troubling that their freedom came at the cost of surrendering fundamental religious rights,” Dr. Gondwe stated.
According to CSW, the releases which occurred between November and December 2025 affected 177 Christians from prohibited denominations, many of them students arrested in April 2023 while recording worship music for YouTube. The conditional releases began on November 18, when 16 men and three women were freed on bail from Keren prison. Further releases included 26 individuals on December 3, 36 members of the Full Gospel Church on December 11, and 17 additional detainees on December 12, most of whom had been confined in the notorious Mai Serwa Prison for nearly five years.
Dr. Gondwe emphasized that those freed represent only a small portion of Eritrea’s arbitrarily detained prisoners of conscience, which include senior church leaders and prominent pro-democracy figures, some held incommunicado for more than two decades. “Religious adherents continue to face imprisonment in harsh, life-threatening conditions, alongside tens of thousands of other prisoners held across more than 300 sites in Eritrea,” he added.
The CSW report highlights that most of the released detainees were forced to sign confessions admitting to crimes simply for belonging to a proscribed denomination. They were required to pledge never to engage in the same religious practice again and to accept responsibility for any punishment should they violate the terms. This practice, CSW says, forms part of a longstanding campaign of arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention in Eritrea, which has been ongoing since May 2002, when the government banned all churches not affiliated with the Catholic, Orthodox, or Evangelical Lutheran traditions.
Minors have not been spared, according to the report. Some of those released in December 2025 had been imprisoned for nearly 18 years, including a former Olympian, senior policemen, and business professionals. While some observers suggest that the release of young prisoners after multi-year detentions may reflect a regular rotation to make room for new arrests, others speculate that the release of Christian detainees may form part of Eritrea’s strategy to reset relations with the United States following the return of the Trump Administration.
CSW urged Eritrea to release all prisoners held without due process and called on both Eritrea and Ethiopia to exercise restraint in a region already burdened by humanitarian crises. “The arbitrary detention of individuals for their faith and the coercion to renounce deeply held beliefs cannot be justified and only serves to further destabilize communities,” Dr. Gondwe concluded.