I would like to congratulate the Guardian for trying to shed light on a country which does not often get a mention in the news, with its Inside Eritrea series. As chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Union committee on the human rights of parliamentarians, I, with a number of parliamentarians from around the world, have been trying to establish the fate of the 11 Eritrean parliamentarians detained since September 2011, referred to in one of your reports. I would like to ask the Eritrean government to contact me or the IPU committee in Geneva to provide an update on the case. Over the years of captivity, many rumours have circulated in the absence of official pronouncements. The detainees’ welfare remains of paramount concern to the committee, which has asked to be able to visit them in prison. The families of the detained have also suffered enough. They need to know whether their relatives are still alive, and, if so, must be allowed to see them.
More generally, if the Eritrean government wants to promote a more positive image, it needs to be more transparent. Until we are able to see for ourselves, any positive narrative being promoted is not credible – particularly as the thousands continuing to flee their homeland every month speaks for itself.
Ann Clwyd MP
Labour, Cynon Valley
