The Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,

Referring to the case of the parliamentarians listed above, former members of the Parliament of Eritrea, as outlined in the report of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians (CL/180/12(b)-R.1), and to the resolution adopted at its 179th session (October 2006),

Recalling the following: the former parliamentarians concerned have been held incommunicado since their arrest on 18 September 2001 and have been neither officially charged nor brought before a judge; their arrest followed the publication of an open letter in which they called for democratic reform; the authorities, which accuse them inter alia of conspiring and attempting to overthrow the government, have provided different arguments for not bringing them before a court of law: on the one hand they stated that they could only be taken to court once the peace process was concluded since a trial might hamper the peace process owing to sensitive information that might be revealed; on the other hand they stated that they had been unable to bring them before a court because of the deficient nature of the criminal justice system in Eritrea, and that they did not "throw away or stash the matter indefinitely",

Recalling further that, in a decision on this case adopted at its 34th ordinary session (November 2003), the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights found the State of Eritrea to be in breach of Articles 2 (entitlement without discrimination to the enjoyment of human rights enshrined in the Charter), 6 (right to liberty and security of person), 7(1) (right to a fair trial) and 9(2) (right to freedom of expression) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights; the Commission urged the Government of Eritrea to order the immediate release of the 11 detainees and recommended that they be granted compensation; the decision was included in the Commission's Seventeenth Annual Activity Report and endorsed by the 4th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (Abuja, 2005),

1. Condemns the continuing incommunicado detention of the former parliamentarians concerned, as it constitutes a gross violation of their fundamental rights under the Constitution of Eritrea and under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, to which Eritrea is a party;

2. Reaffirms that no argument whatsoever can justify such violations, and once again urges the authorities to release the former parliamentarians concerned forthwith;

3. Appeals to the authorities of the African Union, the African Parliamentary Union and the Pan-African Parliament to do everything in their power to ensure compliance with the decision of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in this case, and believes that they have a particular interest in ensuring that decisions of the African Commission are indeed applied;

4. Solemnly calls upon all member parliaments to intervene in favour of the release of the parliamentarians concerned;

5. Reiterates its wish to conduct an on-site visit since it remains convinced that such a visit would help solve this case, and requests the Secretary General to pursue his efforts to this end;

6. Requests the Committee to continue examining this case and report to it at its next session, to be held on the occasion of the 117th Assembly (October 2007).

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