Fifteen Years for a Cartoon

What's happening

Biniam Solomon, an Eritrean satirical cartoonist known by his pen name Cobra, has been released after 15 years in detention without ever being charged. Arrested in Asmara in 2011, he had no contact with his family for the entire duration of his imprisonment. Despite losing an arm in childhood, Biniam built a career as an artist and physics teacher, publishing cartoons in Eritrean newspapers during a brief four-year window of press freedom between 1997 and 2001. When the government shut down the private press in September 2001, citing national security, journalists were jailed. The UN has called for the release of an estimated 10,000 people held without trial in Eritrea. Biniam's release comes amid reports of other long-term detainees being freed, though the process remains opaque. The authorities have not said why he was set free.

What the text says

Jeremiah was a man whose words made him dangerous. In a besieged Jerusalem, he told the people what they did not want to hear: the city would fall. The officials convinced the king to hand him over. They lowered him into a cistern with ropes, and he sank into the mud.

Jeremiah 38:6Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king's son, that was in the court of the guard: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.

The Hebrew word for the cistern, bor, is used throughout the Old Testament for both a water pit and a prison. The prophets knew them as the same place. The powerful have always understood that the most effective way to silence a voice is to remove its body from view. No trial. No formal charges. Disappearance.

Someone noticed. Ebed-Melech, a Cushite official in the king's palace, a foreigner with no obvious political reason to act, went to the king and said plainly: this man will die if you leave him there. He pulled Jeremiah out with rags and ropes, taking care to pad the ropes so they would not cut into the prophet's skin.

Jeremiah 38:12-1312Ebedmelech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, Put now these rags and worn-out garments under your armpits under the cords. Jeremiah did so.13So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and took him up out of the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

The rescue is quiet. It comes from an unexpected quarter. The text does not celebrate it with fanfare. The prophet is simply pulled from the dark.

The reflection

Biniam Solomon drew cartoons that made powerful men uncomfortable. The state's answer was silence: fifteen years in a cell without a charge. A cistern with no rope.

The text insists that someone always notices. Ebed-Melech had no obligation to speak. He was a foreigner in someone else's court. He spoke anyway. Eritrea has freed one man. The UN says 10,000 remain. The question the text asks of every community watching from outside the walls is whether it will be the one that reaches for the rope.