Sir, Jaballa Matar, father of the 2006 Man Booker shortlisted and 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ prize-winning British author Hisham Matar, was one of the most prominent Libyan political activists. He continually called for democracy, the rule of law and justice in Libya. He was kidnapped from his home in Cairo in 1990. His family has not seen him since.
Letters written by Jaballa were smuggled out of Libya’s political prison, Abu Salim, in 1992 and 1995. They confirmed that the Egyptian authorities held him in Cairo for two days then handed him over to Libyan officials. He was then flown to Tripoli, tortured and subjected to arbitrary detention. He was seen in 2002 in another, secret political prison in Tripoli. His family, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International believe him still to be in Libya. However, the Libyan Government continues to deny any knowledge of his whereabouts and that of others among Libya’s disappeared. Jaballa is yet to be granted an open trial.
We urge the Government to use its new relationship with the Libyan government to demand sincere and significant improvements in Libya’s human rights record. We therefore ask the Foreign Office whether, having regard to the latest Human Rights Watch report, published on December 12, in which Jaballa’s case is documented, it will seek information from the Libyan government about the whereabouts of Jaballa and other political prisoners.
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Lisa Appignanesi
President, English PEN
Hisham Matar, J.M Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, Margaret Atwood, Kiran Desai, Anne Enright, Alan Hollinghurst, Ian McEwan, Michael Ondaatje, Roddy Doyle, Sir Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Carole Ann Duffy, Sir Andrew Motion, Monica Ali, Nadeem Aslam, Trezza Azzopardi, Adam Foulds, Linda Grant, Mohsin Hamid, M.J Hyland, Ali Smith, Zadie Smith, Carole Seymour-Jones, Chair, Writers in Prison Committee, Eva Hoffman, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, Sir Tom Stoppard, Hari Kunzru, David Edgar, Sir David Hare, Sigrid Rausing, Philippe Sands, QC, Ruth Padel, Mark Strand, Luay Abdulilah, Dr Eve Agee, Ghalia Al Qattan, Omar Al Qattan, Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, Hanan al-Shaykh, Daniel Alarcon, Kitty Aldridge, Al Alvarez, Tahmima Anam, Fadhil Assultani, David Austin, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Betim Balaman, Veronica Ballesteros, Julie Barer, Professor Paul Barker, Damien Barr, Shumon Basar, Buzz Baum, Devorah Baum, Nicholas Beale, Charles Beckett, Jerone Bellavista, Julie Bindel, William Blacker, Kristina Boles, Erik Bostedt, Rosie Boycott, Emma Boyd, Joanna Briscoe, Gwen Burnyeat, Andrea Canobbio, Andrea Cavallari, Riccardo Cavallari, Oliver Chanarin, Tanuja Chandra, Tchaik Chassay, Brian Chikwava, Anne Chisholm, Susanne Chowdhury, Susannah Clapp, Joanna Clark, Giuseppe Conte, Clare Conville, Professor Geoffrey Crossick, Alonso Cueto Caballero, LucyAnn Curling, Amy D’Addario, Stacey D’Erasmo, Tom Darling, Alessandro de Marchant et d’ Ansembourg, Veronica del Signore, Diana Dondoe, Angela Dorazio, Tishani Doshi, Ceridwen Dovey, Lindiwe Dovey, Nick Duckett, Sarah Dunant, Tim Ecott, David Edgar, Elisaebeth Eide, Deborah Eisenberg, Nayla El Amin Habbiballa, Kristoffer Famm, Andrew Feinstein, William Fiennes, Anne Flotaker, Aminatta Forna, Cynthia , Fortune- Rainey, Ernesto Franco, Jonathan Franzen, Maureen Freely, Esther Freud, Elizabeth Gilbert, Marrianne Gimon, Misha Glenny, Francisco Goldman, David Gothard, Dr Mia Grey, Jill Grove, Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, George Lucian Gugulici, Romesh Gunesekera, Dermot Healy, Alexandra Heminsley, Alistair Hicks, Rebecca Hicks, Paul Hilder, Peter Hobbs, Rachel Holmes, David Hornback, Irfan Husain, Allegra Huston, Marina Hyde, John Irving, Hala Jaber, Keren James, Liz Jesen, Ghalia Kabbani, Susan Kamil, Ed Kashi, Judith Kazantzis, Brigid Keenan, Kate Kellaway, Serephena Kennedy, Indra Khanna, Hannah Kuper, Rachel Kushner, Nick Laird, Nikita Lalwani, Rachel Lasserson, Nam Le, Darian Leader, Alastair Levy, Professor Nancy Leys Stepan, Roger Linden, Laura Lockington, Isobel Lopez, Fiach Mac Conghail, Sheena Mackay, Christopher MacLehose, Koukla Maclehose, Daniela Magnaghi, Sarah Maguire, Dan March, Ilaria Mare, Diana Matar, Cathrine Mauger-Williams, Zoe Maxwell, John McAuliffe, Annette McCormack, Patrick McGrath, Tim Meara, Professor Betty Medsger, James Meek, Askold Melnyczuk, Linda Melvern, Charlotte Mendelson, Elisa Messina, Mark Miodownik, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Moni Mohsin, Caroline Moorehead, Emmanuelle Moors, Patrick Morris, Blake Morrison, Ferdinand Mount, Mary Mount, Neel Mukherjee, Blake Munting, Rosalind Nashashibi, Phillip van Niekerk, Maggie O’Farrell, Timothy O’Grady, Gregory Orfalea, Geoff Palmer, LucyAnn Palmer, Manon Palmer, Ruth Palmer, Eric Parkinson, Ann Patchett, Andrew Payne, Marie Phillips, Martin Pick, Amanda Piercy, Gabriela Pomeroy, Christine Popp, Marc Preoo, Alexandra Pringle, Gwyn Pritchard, Simon Prosser, Monique Proudlove, Justice John T. Racanelli, Sirish Rao, Hepzibah Rendle-Short, Steven Rhodes, Robin Robertson, Mandana Ruane, Olivier Rubinstein, Michael Rustin, Jessica Ruston, Mark Rylance, Carole Satyamurti, Emma Satyamurti, George Saunders, Vivian Schilling, Michael Schumann, Robyn Scott, James Sevitt, Nicola Shayne, Jasprett Singh, Kathleen Smith, Mary Smith, Rowan Somerville, Ahdaf Soueif, Peter Sparks, Peter Straus, Stephen Stuart-Smith, Fawzia Tarbah, Chika Unigwe, Paul van Zyl, Rossella Vasta, Rita Vaudrey, Steve Waters, Chris Watson, Professor Stanley Wells, CBE, Sir Arnold Wesker, Megan Wiler, David Wilkinson, James Willcox, Joanne Willcox, Dr Peter Willcox, Benjamin D. Williams, C.K. Williams, Isabel Wolff, Lucinda Wood, Marius Wulfsberg, Raffaella Barker