Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There's no opportunity for free speech, no opportunity for dissent, absolutely nothing. Journalists are imprisoned, unlike anywhere else in Africa. There are many journalists imprisoned. There have been no formal charges, no trials, no one knows where they are, no one knows if they're alive or dead.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  From what we understand, it has no ability to do that.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  A lot of the mechanisms that you would see in other countries, in democracies, for dealing with some of these issues, just don't exist in Eritrea. They may exist on paper but in practice they don't exist.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It depends on who you ask, but generally speaking the country is half Muslim, half Christian.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Not that we know of in Eritrea, but according to the UN monitoring group, Eritrea does support al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There are numerous human rights issues in Eritrea with the national service program, but our research focused mainly on the treatment of workers for Segen, looking at the forced nature of the employees. Certainly that is what our recommendations have focused on: ensuring that forced labour does not happen, and ensuring that the conditions for the workers are appropriate and in line with international best practice and with what we'd expect here in Canada.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Sunridge is a Canadian company and South Boulder is an Australian company, involved in potash.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Certainly Eritrea's human rights record is not a surprise. If you google “Eritrea human rights”, you'll get a whole list of different things. So for him to say that he was not aware of human rights concerns in Eritrea generally, I don't accept that, unless he just doesn't want to know.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  As you mentioned, processes have been put in place since our report to try to limit the potential for the use of forced labour. Given the difficulty of accessing the site, it's very difficult to assess whether or not it's had an actual impact on the ground. We do hope that the other companies—Sunridge, South Boulder, etc.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, the national service program, the scale of it, is quite incredible. As I mentioned, it was originally conceived to last 18 months, but many people spend their entire lives in national service, and anyone who dares to flee or not participate is often jailed in very inhumane conditions.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There are many Eritrean diaspora groups located in Canada and elsewhere who openly speak out against the regime and try to push for political reform, for free and fair elections, for constitutional change, and for everything, but their ability to bring about change is quite limited.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think that's a very complicated question. Certainly Eritrea is under UN sanctions because of its support for al-Shabaab in Somalia. Eritrea has basically become the pariah of the international community and certainly of Africa. It does not have a lot of friends. As for the relationship with Ethiopia, again, it's difficult to know exactly what is happening.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Again, we haven't done any recent detailed research on that, but in a nutshell I believe there are five religions that are allowed in Eritrea. All other religions are banned. Those who practise those religions are arrested and often tortured and told to denounce their faith. There have been a number of stories about Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, who have been tortured.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It's difficult to answer because Nevsun is actually the first operational mine in Eritrea. The other two large companies are an Australian company, South Boulder, and then a Chinese company that recently bought out another Australian company. They're just at the very beginning of their processes.