Eritrean Press: Reporting on Africa's most secretive state

According to Reporters Without Borders, only North Korea has less press freedom.

The international media monitoring organisation describes Eritrea as "a dictatorship in which the media have no rights".

All news outlets inside the north-eastern African country are state-owned, and journalists have been imprisoned without trial or charge.

That makes J's page, Eritrean Press, unusual - and perhaps unique. It has more than 250,000 followers, and is independent of the Eritrean government. J lives in Britain, but makes occasional trips back to Eritrea, and he agreed to give his first interview to the BBC on condition we keep his identity a secret.

Not even the page's eight volunteer writers - based in Eritrea, Britain and the US - know his real name.

"No-one knows who I am," he says. "I'd be in prison."

Cycling and satire

The content on the Facebook page covers the broad sweep of Eritrean life. Alongside politics and satire, there are reports about the national cycling team, human interest stories and posts original art deco architecture in the capital Asmara.

It's a mix that on average reaches about 1.25 million people each week. Its address is the slightly misspelled @EritreanPresss, because the page with the correct spelling is an overtly pro-government fake, with a tenth of the followers. It's unclear who runs that page.

Most readers of the genuine Eritrean Press are part of the Eritrean diaspora around the world.