Yusuf MOHAMED ALI (editor-in-chief, Tsigenay), Mattewos HABTEAB (editor-in-chief, Meqaleh), Dawit HABTEMICHAEL (reporter, Meqaleh), Medhanie HAILE (editor-in-chief, Keste Debena), Emanuel ASRAT
(Zemen), Temesken GHEBREYESUS (Keste Debena), Dawit ISAAC (co-owner of Setit, writer), Fesshaye YOHANNES “Joshua” (publisher, Setit, playwright and poet), Said ABDELKADER (writer and editor, Admas, and owner of the press that printed most of the independent newspapers), Eritrea
Thirteen Eritrean journalists were detained in September 2001, shortly after President Issaias Afeworki took the decision to close all of the country's private newspapers, leaving only the state-run Hadas Eritrea. Of the nine who are Honorary Members of PEN Canada, the following are now believed dead: Yusuf Mohamed Ali (June 2006), Medhanie Haile, Fesshaye Yohannes (January 2007), Said Abdelkhader (March 2005). In January 2009 the website Eritrea Watch reported that Dawit Isaac, who is also a Swedish citizen, had been moved with more than a hundred other political prisoners to a maximum-security prison in Embatkala, 20 miles northeast of the capital Asmara. In March more than 250 Swedish MPs wrote directly to the Eritrean government to ask for Dawit Isaac’s release.

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