Dear Editor

As mothers and women who have responsibility for our families, we feel threatened by the indiscriminate killing we have witnessed in the last month. We have criticized the excesses of the security services, and the refusal of the government to engage the opposition parties and the rest of the society in discussions to resolve the divisions and unite the country in working to end the violent attacks on our lives.

We read with dismay the statement from the PNCR which, as the government did before, puts conditions on continuing discussions with stakeholders. We believe that some of the concerns raised in the statement are important and must be addressed urgently, but it is wrong to put conditions on meeting now. This looks like tit for tat politics, and we see this as playing games with our lives.

We call on the leader of the opposition and his party to reconsider the decision and get back to the discussions.

Yours faithfully,

Karen de Souza, Nicola Marcus

and Halima Khan

For Red Thread