Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

In the course of our discussions, we met the Prime Minister and three imprisoned leaders of the opposition. We met Hailu Shawil and Dr. Berhanu Nega, who will be known to many people here because he worked with the ESRI, both of whom are imprisoned. Will the Minister of State engage with his colleagues in the EU to speed up the trials of the many people in prison? The Prime Minister claims that approximately 90 people are imprisoned. The leaders of the opposition state that there are more than 1,000 people in prisons scattered throughout the country. There is an onus on the Government to pressurise the Ethiopian Government to speed up their release.

An Action Aid human-rights lawyer, Daniel Bekele, who is in Kaliti prison, has been working his way through the courts, up to and including Ethiopia's supreme court.

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