Ninety-eight Eritrean Christians detained in September by the country’s authorities are still being held, Release International (RI) reports.
The detainees, currently in Mai Serwa prison, were among 150 Christians picked up during a raid on an underground church where they gathered for worship.
After picking up the worshippers from the church located in Godaif District in the southern part of the capital, Asmara, the authorities released some women and children but still detained 98 of them.
RI say no fewer than 300 Eritrean Christians are being held in prison for practising Christianity. Many of them who refused to renounce their faith have spent more than 15 years in prison without trial.
In March 2022, 29 Christians were jailed after the police raided a prayer meeting in a private house.
In May, Christians in Eritrea marked 20 years of persecution. The country’s authorities shut down most of the churches in the country in May 2002 when it outlawed every religion except Sunni Islam, Eritrean Orthodox, Roman Catholicism and the Lutheran Church.
The East African country, which broke from Ethiopia in 1991 after a 30-year war, closed many Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, whose members are more in jail. Christians who defy open congregation are seen as enemies of the state.
In prison, Christians are forbidden from praying aloud, singing, preaching or reading religious books.
Christian watchdog, Open Doors, earlier in the year ranked Ethiopia 6th among 50 countries where Christians are most persecuted.