From Dan Moshenberg:
In Eritrea, called by some the largest prison in the world (although Gaza also can make that claim), the conditions in the actual prisons are inhumane: “The continuing “emergency” is also used to legitimize sweeping restrictions on political dissent and religion. National-service conscripts who question government policy soon find themselves in Eritrea’s massive and mysterious national network of jails. Among those languishing in appalling conditions in Eritrea’s prisons – underground, in shipping containers and in the notorious Dahlak Kebir island prison in the Red Sea – are students who were caught reading the bible in school, soldiers who tried to flee the army, and political opponents who in 2001 questioned the president and called for the return of democracy in 2001 (the last category includes the former foreign minister and vice-president)
Report from Human Rights Watch
Interestingly, the Eritrean prison system gets a huge amount of coverage in the Swedish media. This is due to a Swedish citizen, journalist Dawit Isaac, having been incaracerated there for the past seven years. Recently all four big newspapers had large front-page statements calling for his release, and there’s been much more Eritrea coverage than you’d expect for an African country, long multi-page articles even in the tabloids.