“I love my culture,” says Timnit Solomon. “Being Eritrean means you are a branch of a strong tree with deep roots.”

“To keep thinking that things can’t get worse and to be surprised that they do,” adds Saleh Younis. “To be amazed at the magnitude of the exodus from Eritreaand to be confounded that there are intelligent people who still support the government unconditionally.”

The stories and comments on our Inside Eritrea series this week demonstrate a diverse range of views, and these are just two of many contributions we received from members of the Eritrean diaspora who got in touch to tell us what it’s like to live outside the country, looking in.

Some wrote to us to highlight the reach of the notoriously repressive government, while others described how they stayed connected to their Eritrean identity, despite having never stepped foot in their homeland.

The government’s ‘long tentacles of fear’

Whilst remittances sent home are part of life for many African diaspora communities, Eritrea has formalised a 2% income tax on money made abroad to facilitate reconstruction after the 30-year war for independence from Ethiopia finally came to an end in 1991.

The policy, still enforced by some embassies, was condemned by the UN in 2011, who accused the government of extorting Eritreans abroad and using the funds to destabilise the Horn of Africa region.

Ghezae Hagos, a former journalist in Eritrea who fled to Canada following president Isaias Afwerki’s brutal crackdown in 2001, says the tax is crucial for understanding how the government inspires fear in the diaspora from afar.

“There is no diaspora in the world that is more afraid of a government than the Eritrean [one],” he says, explaining that the “long tentacles of the regime” suffocate “healthy community integration and development”.

Noel Joseph, a UK-based Eritrean human rights activist previously described the tax as a means to hold the diaspora to ransom. “You need a clearance document to get anything from the state – a will, a passport, even to send a parcel home. No tax, no document,” he explained.

For Hagos this quote, reportedly from president Afewerki himself, says it all: “If you tie a chicken from a far, it thinks it is free”.

‘Biased media coverage’

Mebrak Ghebreweldi, a small business owner from Lewes in the UK, got in touch to complain about the Guardian’s “one-sided” coverage – a view shared by a small but significant portion of people commenting on our series this week.

Solomon, from Virginia in the United States, was also unhappy with the narrative being perpetuated by the Guardian’s reporting, which he argued is “barely researched and void of facts”.

The charges against our coverage this week included objections to portraying Asmara as an “oppressive city”; overlooking Eritrea’s progress on the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and repeating comparisons that the country has become “Africa’s North Korea”.

Ghebreweldi is also critical of the UN human rights report, published in June, which accused the government of grave human rights abuses and threw the closed-off and secretive country into the international spotlight.

She was one of the group who travelled to London in June to protest against “unjust” economic sanctions against Eritrea. The group held banners denouncing the UN report as a “pack of lies”, calling on the international community to “respect Eritrea’s sovereignty”.

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Solomon’s wish is that more people visit the country to see the “positive things” going on inside. Unlike foreign journalists – who are routinely blocked from entering – he has visited several times, and is making plans to go back for the 25th anniversary of independence next year.

Ghebreweldi says she visited Eritrea three months ago, and gives a positive account, describing “dams being built and young people harvesting honey from the mountains”.

But reports suggest that most of the people she saw were likely conscripted into indefinite national service, which has been condemned as a form of modern-day serfdom, and attributed to the upswing in young Eritreans fleeing their country and making the dangerous journey to Europe.

“I have 11 cousins still living in Eritrea and serving [in] the national service: they might not be happy, however they are healthy,” says Ghebreweldi, who uses her trips to actively dissuade them from escaping to Europe.

‘I love Eritrea but hate the government’

The majority of responses we received were from Eritreans born outside who have never been able to visit, or who have only visited a couple of times. Most talk of being conflicted: proudly Eritrean, but dismayed by the actions of the current regime.

Biki Bikimeli contacted us via GuardianWitness to describe pride in a nation that “fought hard for independence”, but which has now become “enslaved by their own brothers”, through indefinite military conscription.

Bikimeli excelled at the Eritrean Institute of Technology but had to leave due to not being “from the right family”. He “took a risk to go to Europe” – and free or not, the option “was better than being a slave”, he explains.

Born and raised in the diaspora, Rachel travelled back to Eritrea recently, with the hope of connecting with her “roots and culture”. She hoped this would help her to “restore a sense of identity”. In this, she was successful but says the trip opened her eyes to “fear and paranoia” all around the country.

“I knew this government was not a force to be reckoned with” but being there was “a shock… I love my country wholeheartedly, but I do not love, respect or honour the government,” she added. She says she has since received threats for speaking critically about her experiences there.

Sarah Hamid, who now lives in the United Arab Emirates says she has “no words” to describe how “awful” it is to hear stories of refugees dying as they try to escape: “every time I hear such news, all what comes to my mind is, this could have been me” – a view she says is widely shared by her community.

“One day,” she says, “I am confident Eritrea will be back to the peaceful country I have heard in stories about, and I will finally get to see it.”

Some names have been changed