LONDON, 26 May 2006 (Dave Simpson, Guardian) - The next time an over-indulged rock star whines about "suffering for their art", spare a thought for Helen Berhane. The 30-year-old Eritrean singer has spent most of the past two years locked inside a shipping container. Conditions are sweltering hot by day, freezing cold by night. Berhane has been denied visitors for the entire time she's been there and there is a history of torture. Her crime? Angering the Eritrean regime by refusing to stop producing gospel music.

The singer - a popular performer in east Africa - was arrested in May 2004. She is just one of several thousand prisoners of conscience in the country since the government's 2002 crackdown on evangelical Christians and their music. Music shops have been raided; even the most innocuous performance of anything remotely "gospel" renders artists liable to arrest. Information out of Eritrea is sketchy, but according to Ruth Dawson of Amnesty International, which has taken up Berhane's case, the singer remains in indefinite detention.

“Shemendefer”, is the English translation of the lyrics to one of the masterpieces of artist Tedros Kassahun (a.k.a. Teddy Afro) recent album. Among Teddy Afro’s powerful compositions, advocating the core messages of love and solidarity, “Shemendefer” is perhaps the most influential, given its global import in the current era in which we live. This is a love song about a Muslim man’s ode to a young Christian woman.

Not only does the song’s extremely judicious message concern all of humanity today, but it also very effectively recasts Ethiopia as the beacon of hope and peace it has represented for many throughout history. As such, its translation into English is intended to broadcast the song’s powerful message to the much wider audience warranted by its sheer genius and timeliness.