Welcome to Useless Knowledge: Edition 2. Today I will tell you about a country that may be as bad to live in as North Korea. What is this country? This country is a little known place called Eritrea. It is in Africa and borders Sudan and Ethiopia as well as the Red Sea.
So whats up with Eritrea? Its had the same president since 1993 and has only one political party called People's Front for Democracy and Justice. The news there is also very limited. No news outlets are allowed beyond State-run outlets since 2001 and journalists can be imprisoned. The country is actually ranked last in the World Press Freedom Index. Yes, thats after North Korea. The citizens of Eritrea are also forced to serve in the country's military for an indefinite amount of time even though there was a decree that was supposed to limit the service to 18 months. Since the decree is not enforced, this apparently often amounts to being over a decade of service with poor pay and poor rationing of food, the military service is actually described as being more like slavery.

People in Eritrea can be imprisoned for little to no reason and do not have to be provided with any justification for their imprisonment. They also can jailed indefinitely without a trial being held for them. Rival political parties are also outlawed as well as many religions. Eritrea has thousands of people fleeing from it every year and is actually one of the top countries that people seeking asylum come from. It is estimated that about 15% of its population has fled the country since 1998.

Sources are here and here.

Maybe this knowledge isn't so useless, its kind of sad actually.

useless knowledge from useless people

for legal reasons, that's a joke

idk if i'd describe it to be 'as bad as north korea'. that doesn't settle right. both are really awful countries and would be horrible to live in, i wouldn't compare the two and judge which one is as bad as the other.