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The world looks the other way as Libyans suffer

Widespread torture, often resulting in death, is being reported in the prisons of the new rebel-controlled Libya.[1],[2],[3] Refugee camps have been attacked and militias are being reported to participate in widespread killings, long after the defeat of the former government.[4],[5] The groups are being attacked, including foreign workers, leftists, former public employees of the Jamahiriya government, as well as beduins and members of targeted tribes of Libya.

The infrastucture of this formerly most prosperous nation-state in the African continent, as was widely documentet just months before the war[6],[7],[8], is devestated after the NATO bombings and the civil war, making daily life for Libyans very hard. The country is not ruled by law, but by mob rule of the estimated 200 thousand members of various violent militias that spread terror throughout the country. Since the Libyan army and police were virtually annihilated by Nato bombs and forces on the ground last year, these militias face no real obstacle. This crisis can not be explained away by suggesting that it is a continuation of human rights malpractice of the former authorities. Indeed, the country had been recognized by the international community as having the most satisfactory human rights practices in North Africa (see appendix) just two months before the uprising started. As Libyans face the most dire humanitarian crisis they have ever experienced, at least since the country gained its independence, the international community is almost totally absent and our media are silent.

Widespread torture and murder in secret prisons

According to figures offered by the new interim government itself “[a]t least 7,000 people who were detained during or after the conflict are currently in detention… Roughly 4,000 of them are being held by various militias across the country in both formal and secret detention facilities”. However, “Justice Minister Ali Hamiada Ashour told Human Rights Watch that he did not know the exact number of militia-held detainees, in part because militias were holding some people in secret prisons”[9] In other words, no one knows exactly how many more are held in these “secret prisons”; only that there are at least 7,000.

The very few glimpses of international scrutiny that were available until April, tell a horrifying tale. “International humanitarian groups have reported widespread incidences of torture, extrajudicial executions, and rape of both men and women by officially recognized military and security forces as well as numerous armed militia” commented Lindsey Powers in January 2012[10]. Doctors Without Borders left Libya during this time in protest after repeadedly receiving patients that had obvious signs of torture, only to hand them over to the torturers again. “Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions” commented Christopher Strokes, the general director of DWB.

Unfortunately, when Doctors Without Borders left Libya, the country became virtually stripped of all international monitoring.

Only a few prisoners have managed to get their stories out. “The treatment was inhuman,” said Doctor Osama Mussa, as the prison guards around him looked uneasy.”They burnt people with cigarettes, beat their feet, hung men by their arms – look here,” he said, showing dark swollen rings and scars around his and other prisoners’ wrists and arms.[11] Four of five prisoners detained by a militia in Misrata told that they were forced to drink fuel, were stripped and beaten with metal cables, and driven to a secret location were they saw a lot of blood on the walls. In their own words, they could smell death. After being held for four days, the guards poured alcohol over the bodies of some of the prisoners and burned them alive (including the fifth from the group).[12]

A family who managed to buy freedom for a political prisoner from Misrata found that he had lost two limbs. According to his testimony he had seen people severely tortured, which often resulted in death. The methods included being boiled alive, arbitrarily cut with knives and raped.[13] Being one of the few people who have managed to escape these secret prisons, his testimony should be valuable to bring forth international condemnation of the human rights abuses committed in Libya.

Genocide of Black Libyans

One of the groups that have suffered some of the worst atrocities are Libyans who have dark skin. Tawergha, a town of 32,000 people most of whom are dark skinned Libyans, has been ethnically cleansed and is now empty.[14] The surviving inhabitants are being persecuted, tortured, lynched and murdered[15]. In fact, dark skinned Libyans have been persecuted since the very beginning of the riots in February 2011. As an example, on15th of February, 50 Black men were lynched and hanged in al-Bayda.[16] Three days later, hundreds of dark skinned Libyans were massacred in al Kufra, according to a report from AFP[17]. Public lynchings were recorded by the rebels themselves, continued throughout the civil war and continue to this day.[18],[19] Falsely accused of being mercenaries, foreign workers and dark-skinned Libyans were massacred. Example from the BBC, “We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company – they were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: ‘You are providing troops for Gaddafi’”.[20]  Sadly, this is still common practice in Libya today. Black people are being systematically targeted to such a degree that the concept “genocide” factually describes the situation.

 

Refugee crisis

Since the start of the uprising in 2011, hundreds of thousands have fled the country, and many of these refugees face a hard life. As an example, at least 86.000 migrant workers from Chad were forced to flee from the extreme racism of the Libyan rebels. They cannot return back to Libya, and currently live in refugee camps in Chad, near the Libyan borders. Unfortunately, the country has been suffering from serious draughts. According to camp organisers, the refugees are in dire need of fresh water, medicine and other products.[21],[22] There are more than 200,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Libya[23] who face equally grim futures.

 

Political persecution

The fate of the political class is a prime example of the brutality and lawlessness that is now the rule in Libya. The internationally accepted leader of Libya, Dr. Baghdadi Mahmoudi who was democratically elected as the secretary of the People’s Congress, has been handed over to the militias in Libya in spite being found not guilty of any national or international crimes in an investigation carried out in neighbouring Tunisia. According to Mahmoudis Tunisian lawyer, Mahmoudi has already been subjected to torture from which he has received serious injuries including a punctured lung, a cerebral hemorrhage and psychological trauma. He adds that he expects that he will die in capture considering the horrible status of the current Libyan prison system. Saif al-Islam, the son of Muammar Gaddafi, is still held in confinement in prison. His captors have repeatedly refused the International Criminal Court’s request that he be handed over for a fair trial, and that have even barred his lawyer from contacting him. This despite that the only crime he has been found to be guilty of in the courts of Zintan is improper registration of his camels. His only major involvement with state affairs prior to the civil war was in fact a project which allowed for the release of political prisoners, mostly of the infamous Libyan Islamic Fighting Group which lead the rebel-army that has now taken power. He may also die in custody. Baghdadi and al-Islam are only two of the many followers of the Jamahiriya system that have been mistreated or killed. The rest of the former political structure are either dead, in hiding or in prison.

The new Transitional Government of Libya has passed numerous draconian laws that have no place in today’s world. The most serious of these are laws that exempt all those who fought, or still fight, for the “revolution” last year from legal prosecution. Their human rights abuses and killings are simply put under the table. Concurrently, it was declared as illegal to glorify the Jamahiriya system of governance or to glorify Muammar Gaddafi. Sharia law was already announced in November last year, ending the secularism of the Jamahiriya system.

 

The newly conducted elections in Libya can hardly be considered fair and just, when the followers of the Jamahiriya system are systematically repressed and killed, as they are now. In the current climate of Libyas civil life it is almost impossible for anyone to openly adhere to the Jamahiriya liberal socialist system, it is simply too risky on a personal level.

 

Abandoned by the international community

The same international community that condemned the Jamahiriya government, and the Gaddafi family, for crimes that are in no way close to what the new militia rule openly cheers, and for which the embedsmen never received a chance to defend themselves from, is now silent. Now it seems that the citizens of Libya have no right for protection against violence. If only the same voices that cried a year ago would return, the people of Libya might find hope of peace and safety. If the international community, including its NGOs, want to retain any of their integrity it must react to what is happening in Libya now.

 

References

[1] Cochlan, T. 26.11.11. Libyan prisoners tortured by rebels in Khoms. Khoms: The Australian Times. Accessed 28. june 2012 from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/libyan-prisoners-tortured-by-rebels/story-e6frg6so-1226206469194

[2] Libya S.O.S. 05.02.2012. Libya Testimony – Torturing detained black prisoners. Accessed 28. june 2012 from http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2012/02/libya-testimony-torturing-detained.html

[3] Powers, L. 28.01.2012. End widespread torture and abuse in Libyan prisons. Force Change: Accessable at http://forcechange.com/12640/end-widespread-torture-and-abuse-in-libyan-prisons/

[4]  Holmes, O. and Zargoun, T. 06.02.2012. Gunmen killed five Libyan refugees. Reuters. Available at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/us-libya-violence-idUSTRE81526T20120206

[5] Global Civilians for Peace in Libya. 22.01.2012. Libya is like Somalia. Available at http://globalciviliansforpeace.com/2012/01/22/libya-is-like-somalia/

[6] UN, Human Rights Council. 04.01.2011. Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review. Libya.

[7] United Nations Development Program. 2011. Human Development Index: Libya. Available at http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/LBY.html

[8] The World Bank. 2009. By country data: Libya: http://data.worldbank.org/country/libya

[9] Human Rights Watch. 18.06.2012. Libya: Candidates Should Address Torture, Illegal Detention. Available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4fe01e632.html %5Baccessed 28 June 2012]

[10] Powers, L. 28.01.2012. End widespread torture and abuse in Libyan prisons. Force Change: Accessable at http://forcechange.com/12640/end-widespread-torture-and-abuse-in-libyan-prisons/

[11] Cochlan, T. 26.11.11. Libyan prisoners tortured by rebels in Khoms. Khoms: The Australian Times. Accessed 28. june 2012 from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/libyan-prisoners-tortured-by-rebels/story-e6frg6so-1226206469194

[12] Libya S.O.S. 05.02.2012. Libya testimony – torturing detained black prisoners. Available at http://libyasos.blogspot.no/2012/02/libya-testimony-torturing-detained.html

[13] Libya Against Superpower Media. 13.05.2012. This is the new free democratic Libya. Available in http://libyaagainstsuperpowermedia.com/2012/05/13/this-is-the-new-free-democratic-libya-starting-from-jail-ending-to-death/

[17] AFP. More than 100 people killed in south Libya clashes. Tripoli: AFP

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