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This article was originally published on the Guardian’s Liberty Central

While we cannot be sure that there is a heaven, three weeks ago we received partial confirmation that hell is a reality with a known location. Its address is the infamous Eiraeiro prison in Eritrea, 10 miles north of the capital city Asmara, where 35 high-level political prisoners of the Eritrean regime have been held captive in recent years.

Fifteen of these prisoners are known to have died, nine are suffering from serious medical problems and the others are enduring brutal prison conditions. One of them is my brother, the journalist Dawit Isaak, a Swedish citizen, who was first detained in 2001. He was briefly released in 2005, only to be rearrested again within days. In all of his eight and a half years of detention, he has never been formally charged with a crime. Isaak and nine journalist colleagues were arrested seemingly for nothing more than criticising the lack of press freedom and democratic debate in Eritrea.

The most recent revelations of a former prison guard who managed to flee to neighbouring Ethiopia in January, and whose information was first reported in Sweden in April, make clear that Dawit and other inmates are kept in horrendous circumstances. They are not allowed any contact with the outside world or with each other. Their cells are brutally hot almost all year round. They are constantly shackled and the only time they leave their cells is to spend one hour per day in a walled courtyard measuring four square meters. The men receive virtually no medical care and many appear to be psychologically broken.

According to a former guard, who fled because he feared for his own life if the prisoners died, the deprivations suffered by the inmates are “worse than torture”. Under pressure from critics, the Swedish government has repeatedly refused comment, asserting that it is doing everything it can to rescue Dawit. The Swedish public, our family and human rights activists are increasingly concerned, however, that Dawit, who suffers from diabetes, may be lost before help reaches him. Their concerns appear well justified.

Why, for example, have Swedish officials so far not bothered to interview the escaped prison guard?

We would like to stress that we do not completely discount the value of silent diplomacy. While we fully appreciate the enormous difficulties and complexities of the case, the question that presents itself most urgently is, what can we all do together to save Dawit before it is too late? Efforts at the EU level, such as seeking the suspension of aid to Eritrea, as well as applying diplomatic pressure on the regime, are vitally important. The EU process is slow and bureaucratic, and the representatives’ attention is currently diverted by the spreading global financial crisis.

We strongly believe that the battle also has to be taken directly to Eritrea. President Isaias Afewerki has to be prevailed upon to accept a credible emissary who negotiates Dawit’s release. At the same time, the Eritrean regime’s violation of international humanitarian conventions for the treatment of prisoners, such as ensuring adequate food, medical care and other basic rights, needs to be highlighted in the most stringent terms. A Swedish or international medical team — under the auspices of the International Red Cross or an organisation such as Doctors Without Borders — should be placed on 24-hour standby to leave for Eritrea.

The Eritrean government should be requested every single day to give clearance for such a visit. That would highlight the problem while also underscoring the most necessary action to be taken this very instant. The idea that Afewerki cannot be dealt with, that he is worse than any other dictator, is a fallacy. Sweden and the EU must now send a strong signal. They must officially and publicly demand access to a prisoner who is not only a full Swedish citizen, but also an EU citizen (its only prisoner of conscience). Dawit, tragically, stands as a symbol for the continued suffering of the victims of human rights abuses worldwide. If democratic governments fail to firmly stand up to such outrages, they not only lose credibility but become passive aides of the torturers who commit these crimes.

This open letter was signed by Esayas Isaak, brother of Dawit Isaak, founder of the Free Dawit Committee,as well as Ingvar Carlsson, former prime minister of Sweden, Ola Ullsten, former prime minister of Sweden, Mogens Lykketoft, former foreign minister of Denmark, Thorvald Stoltenberg, former foreign minister of Norway, Carl Tham, former minister of education, Sweden, Cecilia Wigström, member of the Swedish Parliament, leader of the All-Party Group for Dawit Isaak, Maxamed Daahir Afrax, author, president of the Somali-speaking PEN, Djibouti, Russell Banks, author, USA, André Brink, author, South Africa, John Le Carré, author, Great Britain, Nuruddin Farah, author, Somalia, Abdulrazak Gurnah, author, Tanzania/Zanzibar, Charles Onyango-Obbo, editor, The Nation, Nairobi, Shailja Patel, author, Kenya, Abdourahman Waberi, author, Djibouti, Günter Wallraff, author and activist, Germany, Ove Bring, professor of international law, Sweden, David Matas, international human rights attorney, Canada, Elsa Chyrum, director of Human Rights Concern – Eritrea, Great Britain, Joel Simon, executive director, Committee to Protect Journalists, USA Jean-François Julliard, secretary general of Reporters Sans Frontières, France, Christian Rickert, reporter Ohne Grenzen, Germany, Peter Englund, author, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Jesper Bengtsson, president of Reporters without Borders, Sweden, Mats Söderlund, president of the Swedish Writer’s Union, Ola Larsmo, chairman Swedish PEN, Mehari Abraham, Eritrean journalist in exile, program director Tv-Zete, Sweden, Susanne Berger, researcher, USA, Vibeke Sperling, senior correspondent Politiken, Denmark, and more. For a full list of signatories, please visit this page

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In January, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) ranked Eritrea alongside Somalia as the “most hostile spots for journalists in the continent”.

It’s a grim position to share: in Somalia, journalists have been shot, blown up, wounded or kidnapped in the ongoing civil war there. The dangers in Eritrea, however, are of a very different nature. An increasingly paranoid government shut all independent media in September 2001 in a repressive crackdown against those it said were working against the interests of the nation.

Two subsequent waves of arrests in November 2006 and February 2009 took the total jailed to 30 journalists and two media workers – making Eritrea the largest jailer of journalists in Africa. All are held without trial: at least four of those are believed to have died in brutal conditions. Many are reportedly held in punishment camps, locked in shipping containers in the baking hot deserts of the lowlands.

Eritrea’s un-elected leadership, who grew up as guerrilla fighters in the war of independence against Ethiopia, tolerate no criticism. They simply dismiss such reports out of hand.

In 2007, I was based in the Eritrean capital Asmara, making up exactly half of the independent media in a county about size of England. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) had just issued its global rankings of press freedom. For the first time, it dropped Eritrea below the long time “worst of the worst” North Korea. It provoked fury in the government.

“I don’t expect anything better from that intelligence organisation,” the Minister for Information Ali Abdu told me in a angry telephone conversation that ended with a sharp cutting of the line. But journalists are far from being the only ones affected. Estimates of the number of political prisoners vary between 10,000 and 30,000, according to Professor Kjetil Tronvoll of the University of Oslo in a recent report – “The Lasting struggle for freedom in Eritrea”.

A fearsome network of secret police informers maintain a tight control — telephones are tapped, suspects are watched closely, and arrests are common.

One thing dominates life — the tense border standoff with Ethiopia. The neighbours returned to war in 1998, a two-year brutal conflict in which 100,000 died. They remain in an uneasy standoff along their 620-mile desert border.

Economic life has stagnated, private enterprise has been choked and the youth are caught up in a giant programme of national service, making Eritrea one of the most militarised nations in the world. Conscription stretches for decades and recruits are paid cripplingly low wages. Young call the tightly restricted country a “giant prison”. Even the university is closed, replaced with colleges run on military lines — neatly ending a site of potential opposition.

Those who can, get out: thousands of Eritreans have fled across the dangerous border into Ethiopia or Sudan. Eritrean citizens are one of the largest nationalities seeking asylum in the UK in recent years, a trend mirrored in several other nations across Europe. Of those remaining, few are hopeful of change anytime soon.

Peter Martell was the BBC and Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent in Eritrea from 2006 to 2008. His left after the government stripped him of his work permit for refusing to name a source.

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In September 2001, Eritrea banned its private press and rounded up and jailed more than a dozen journalists, effectively ending any independent voice in the country. Yesterday’s jailing of six journalists in Gambia may not be as dramatic or ominous, but the two situations have striking parallels.

The six convictions in Gambia could effectively be the end of the country’s independent press, leaving Gambia devoid of any independent voice to check an increasingly erratic president.

It looks as if Eritrea President Issais Afewerki has a rival as the worst press freedom abuser on the continent — Gambia President Yahya Jammeh.

Jammeh’s kangaroo court found the Gambian journalists, including the editors of the two major independent newspapers, guilty of sedition and criminal defamation. The judge sentenced all six to two years in jail and also imposed a $10,000 fine. If the journalists are unable to pay the fine, they will have to serve an additional two years in jail, according to the Gambian Press Union.

The conviction was the result of a union press release that criticised the comments Jammeh made about Deyda Hydara, a respected journalist who was murdered under suspicious circumstances in 2004. Jammeh said in a TV interview that Hydara’s murder was the result of a lovers’ quarrel. The union press release on 11 June expressed “its shock and disappointment”, over Jammeh’s remark.

Judge Emmanuel Fagbenle, who issued the verdict, said that the union press release was supposed to “ridicule the head of state and bring his person into disrepute among his colleagues and in the eyes of the public”, according to Inter Press Service.

Jammeh seemed to foreshadow this verdict a couple weeks ago, when he said in another television interview: “So they think they can hide behind so-called press freedom and violate the law and get away with it. They got it wrong this time. We are going to prosecute them to the letter.”

The union said the journalists plan to appeal, but for now the six have been sent to the feared Mile 2 State Central Prison.

Attention will now turn to international donors and donor nations to see what reaction, if any, they have to the latest dramatic downturn for press freedom in the Gambia.

Eight years after Issais banned the press, his country is a poor police state and a pariah in the international community. Hopefully, Eritrea’s path serves as a warning to Jammeh that banning dissent is not a path to prosperity.

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