The Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,

Referring to the cases of the parliamentarians listed above, former members of the Parliament of Eritrea who have been held incommunicado since 18 September 2001, as outlined in the report of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians (CL/183/12(b)-R.1), and to the resolution adopted at its 182nd session (April 2008),

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 held incommunicado ever since, accused of conspiracy and attempting to overthrow the legal government without ever being formally charged or tried;

• 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 urged the State of Eritrea to order the immediate release of the former parliamentarians and to compensate them,

1. Is appalled by the continued silence of the Eritrean authorities to its persistent pleas to end the prolonged incommunicado detention of the former parliamentarians in flagrant breach of their fundamental rights under the Constitution of Eritrea and under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights;

2. Urges them onceagain to put an end to this shocking situation, which flies in the face of all respect for human dignity, by releasing the former parliamentarians forthwith;

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

4. 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 the Commission's authority from being undermined by the attitude of a party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights;

5. Maintains its wish to conduct an on-site visit, since it remains convinced that such a visit would help resolve this case;

6. Requests the Secretary General to take any other action that may lead to the release of the persons concerned;

7. Requests the Committee to continue examining this case and report to it at its next session, to be held on the occasion of the 120th Assembly of the IPU (April 2009).

Note: you can download a complete electronic version of the brochure "Results of the 119th IPU Assembly and related meetings" in PDF format (file size 595K approximately). This version requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download free of charge.

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