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Sheikh Hamid Turki: Fomenting Religious  
Differences for What End, for Whose Benefit? 
By 
Ibrahim Mohammed Ali 
 
 
 
(The article below was written as 
response to Sheikh Hamid Turki’s 
article of 28 July 2009 by Ibrahim 
Mohammed Ali before the latter 
was hospitalized in Damascus, 
Syria, for a successful cardiac 
operation that he underwent on 18 
August 2009.  Ibrahim is a veteran 
leader in the prolonged Eritrean 
struggle for national liberation 
and democratic governance. He 
remains a key figure in the 
Eritrean People’s Party that was 
founded in August 2008.)  
  
 
 
The heroic Eritrean people, who paid dearly in the 30-year struggle for national liberation, are 
today passing very difficult times squeezed in between two harmful conditions created by two 
actors.  
 
The main actor in causing suffering and a sad situation in Eritrea is the oppressive one-man 
regime that imposed itself on the nation for the last two decades. The dictatorial regime has 
not only denied the Eritrean people their very basic human rights but also subjected them to 
the most brutal repression.  
 
The other actors and partners of the dictatorial regime in causing and prolonging the suffering 
of our people and creating unhealthy situation ar e certain opposition groups bent at disrupting 
the internal unity and social setup of this diverse but one nation by forging their fragmented 
groupings and promoting division based on religion, language and ethnicity. The ruling 
regime and some of those in the opposition who are damaging national unity may, on the 
surface, appear to look different, although in reality they are two faces of the same coin. Both 
of them inflict huge damage to the country and its people even though there may be only 
slight difference in the degree of damage they cause.  
 
The illegitimate and anti-democratic regime in  Eritrea uses the presence of the religious and 
ethnic groups and their projects as a pretext to present itself as the guarantor of national unity 
and stability and thus prolong it s stay in power and cover up its illegitimacy and excessive 
abuse of human rights that include endless imprisonments, torture, disappearances and 
physical liquidations. 

 
Ibrahim Mohammed Ali (left) Chairing the Eritrean national alliance in 2001. He 
is flanked by Sheik  Hamid Turki. 
 
 
On the other hand, those forces that promote religious and ethnic alignments take as pretext 
the anti-national and anti-human rights actions of the absolutist regime and utilize religion for 
political ends. In this way - wittingly or unwittingly - they are serving the interests of the 
dictatorial regime by sowing seeds of disharmony in all segments of the society and by 
sharpening differences among national forces in the opposition. At this stage, it suffices to 
mention the article of 28 July 2009 that Sheikh Hamid Turki, a leading figure in the Islamic 
Jihad movement, authored and posted in the websites. In his article, Sheik Turki called the 
Eritrean People’s Party (EPP) and the Eritrea n Democratic Party (EDP) - two mainstream 
actors in the current struggle for change and democracy in Eritrea - as an emerging bloc and 
presented his subject conclusions that can be summarized under three points.  
 
According to him, this bloc “belongs” to and “represents” the Christian religion, culture and 
Tigrinia ethnic group and described Muslims in the parties as their “supporters”. According to 
the writer, this bloc aims to impose political hegemony by strengthening itself and dominating 
other organizations Thirdly, Sheik Turki opined th at this bloc aspires to take as its own the 
legacies of the EPLF and inherit power from the regime.  
 
Naturally, Sheikh Turki and others have the right to state their views without any constraint as  
long as those views are presented objectively a nd with honesty without being carried away by 
biased personal feelings and unfiltered convictions. Sheikh Turki himself rejected in the 
introduction of his writing the dangers of reverting to the practice of basing one’s judgment 
on wrong conclusions out of personal feelings and individual convictions, and he said such 
wrong conclusions repeatedly plunged the Eritrean political arena into internecine conflicts 

and divisions. But when he started to describe the EDP and the EPP, Sheikh Hamid Turki 
took the liberty of contradicting himself.  
 
The most surprising and dishonest part of it his writing resorted to labeling other 
organizations of being religion-oriented. It is  surprisingly shameful because Sheikh Hamid 
Turki is by his own choice leading a religion-based Jihad movement. I am not name-calling 
but stating established facts of what his movement acts on and stands for openly as a religious 
organization. As to EPP and EDP, these are organizations whose political programs and 
information outlets in no way say they are exclusively for Eritreans of a given  religion or 
ethnicity. In the contrary, both parties possess national platforms that accommodate Eritrean 
Muslims and Christians. The bloc formed by this two parties (now heading towards unity) 
does not know itself as a bloc representing one re ligion or ethnicity. One can only state that it 
was a figment of Sheikh Turki’s imagination and confusing personal and subjective judgment 
to label the said parties in the way Sheikh Turki characterizes them.  
 
It is thus our right and duty to ask him from where he derived his slanted logic and 
conclusion. Is this the opinion of all Muslims or an odd conclusion of certain groups springing 
from religious biases? Does Sheikh Turki find it sufficient to describe the two parties to be  
“religious” because of the names of individual elements like Woldesus Ammar and Mesfin 
Hagos in their leaderships? If it is so, what interpretations could one give to the presence of 
leadership elements like Mohammed Nur Ahmed and Ismail Nada in those parties? Since 
Sheikh Turki could not deny that the bloc of the two parties is composed of Christians and 
Muslims, couldn’t it be more correct to describe the grouping as a national bloc? Taking this 
logic, we wish to confirm to Sheikh Turki that whether it replaces the regime in power or not, 
the bloc formed by EDP and EPP will never fall into confessional abyss. I also take the liberty 
of informing all concerned that there are two solid and objective reasons why the EDP-EPP 
bloc will not fall into religion-based politics. The first reason is based on a guiding principle 
governing the two parties which are opposed to domination of Eritrean politics by a Muslim 
or Christian ideology. Both parties stand for a secular, democratic and constitutional state that 
accommodates a multi- party system of governan ce – and not a caretaker government backed 
by theocratic structures. The second reason is that this national bloc composed of Muslims 
and Christians will not be expected to serve the interests of only one religious or ethnic side as 
long as it maintains is platform on national principles and ideals. However, the insinuations 
by Sheikh Turki are not unexpected or surprising because we know that these allegations 
come from someone who rigidly sticks to the idea of dividing Eritreans on religious basis. He 
believes that we are of different identities a nd cannot live under one entity and possess and 
common political system. Sheikh Hamid Turk’s judgment also springs from the campaigns 
directed against the ongoing unity process between the EDP and EPP. Likewise, his labeling 
of Muslims in those parties as “sheer supporters ” of Christians and ethnic Tigrinians, without 
even taking note of their convictions and values and their right to choose without the guidance 
of caretaker patrons like himself, is a disdainf ul categorization. This language and logic can 
only come from someone like Shiek Turki who lives in the dream world of taking himself to 
be the “patron-educator”. I say, our good Sheikh: you  practice what you at other times 
condemn.   
 
In this manner, Sheikh Turki’s diehard practice of religious differentiations serve no good 
purpose other than adversely affecting the relations of the confessional segments in our 
society. Obviously, there cannot be an Eritrean entity without harmony and peaceful co-
existence of its religious segments.  
 

Before coming to a conclusion of my writing, I take the liberty of posing a few direct 
questions to Sheikh Hamid Turki.  For instance, I ask you Sheikh Turki if you welcome the 
establishment of organizations that have religious character like yours? And don’t you believe 
that allowing religious mobilizations in a count ry with multi-religious beliefs would foment 
religious conflicts? What is the benefit that Eritrea in general and Eritrean Muslims in 
particular can obtain by fueling religious rivalries and tensions?  Don’t you think we can learn 
a lesson from the consequences of religious fundamentalism and the use of religion for 
political ends that caused havoc to the peoples of Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and 
other Islamic and non-Islamic societies? If the present and future generations of Eritrean 
Muslims are opposed to a system that marginalizes  them, don’t you see that it is appropriate 
for them to struggle against such a system in close harmony and unity with other compatriots 
under national organizations? If the objective is to  correct mistakes, it is not appropriate to 
organize oneself on religious mobilization and religious message to remove an oppressive 
regime that you accuse to be based on religion; it would be interpreted that you are working to 
replace that religious entity by your own religious structure. This would mean the current 
oppressive system will be replaced by an oppressi ve Islamic system. In such a situation, the 
Christians would declare their own Jihad to ge t rid of Islamic oppression – a vicious cycle of 
conflicts. 
 
In conclusion, I wish to remind Sheikh Turki and others that, due to health reasons, I have not 
been that involved in the political tasks of the ELF-RC and its successor EPP  for the last five 
years. As such, the contents of this article are my personal views and have nothing to do with 
the party. They emanate from my sincere concern for Eritrean national unity, and my deep 
convictions in the truism that in today’s world, it is impossible to build states based on one 
religion or one ethnic belonging. Our epoch is one that allows the formation of states that 
accommodate diverse religious and cultural identities.   
 
Finally, I wish that Sheikh Turki uses his writing skills not in fomenting hatred, conflict and 
fragmentation, but work towards promoting reconciliation, mutual respect, acceptance and 
tolerance.  I also wish to remind readers that I am mindful of the bitterness caused to our 
people by the excessive abuses meted out against our people by the Isayas regime.