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/182/12(b)-R.1), and to the resolution adopted at its 181st session (October 2007),

Recalling the following:

• The parliamentarians concerned were arrested on 18 September 2001 after publishing an open letter criticizing President Issayas Afwerki's policies and have been in incommunicado detention since then under accusations of conspiracy and attempting to overthrow the legal government; however, they have not been formally charged and brought to trial; in February 2002 the National Assembly revoked their mandate;

• In November 2003, upon examination of a complaint concerning their situation, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights found that the State of Eritrea had violated Articles 2, 6, 7(1) and 9(2) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, which address the right to liberty and security of person, the right to a fair trial and the right to freedom of expression, and it urged the State of Eritrea to order the immediate release of the former parliamentarians concerned and to provide them with compensation,

1. Condemns the prolonged and inhumane incommunicado detention of the former parliamentarians concerned in flagrant breach of their fundamental rights under the Constitution of Eritrea and under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights;

2. Affirms that this situation is unacceptable and cannot be justified by any argument whatsoever;

3. Urges onceagain the Eritrean authorities to put an end to this shocking situation by releasing the former parliamentarians concerned forthwith;

4. Considers that, in the year in which it celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the international community and, in particular, the global parliamentary community cannot remain idle in the face of such violation, and requests the Secretary General to make every effort to draw international attention to this case; invites in particular those parliaments of the region which have strong ties with Eritrea to intervene with a view to securing the release of the persons concerned;

5. Appeals once again to the authorities of the African Union, the African Parliamentary Union and the Pan-African Parliament to do everything in their power to reach this objective and thus to ensure Eritrea's compliance with the decision of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in this case, and so prevent its authority from being undermined by the attitude of a Member State to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights;

6. Maintains its wish to conduct an on-site visit since it remains convinced that such a visit would contribute to a settlement of this case;

7. Requests the Secretary General to take any such other action as may be conducive to the release of the persons concerned;

8. Requests the Committee to continue examining this case and report to it at its next session, to be held on the occasion of the 119th Assembly of the IPU (Geneva, October 2008).

Note: you can download a complete electronic version of the brochure "Results of the 118th IPU Assembly and related meetings" in PDF format (file size 547K approximately). This version requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download free of charge.

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