Libya needs to take strong steps to address serious human rights violations

The Libyan authorities must take firm measures to deliver justice and compensate the large number of victims who suffered violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, a situation that has been going on for a long time, the Libyan Independent Fact-Finding Mission said on Sunday. UN on Libya after his last visit to the country.

“The families of the victims have been waiting for justice for too long,” said Mohammad Auajjar, president of the mission, which also includes human rights experts Tracy Robinson and Chaloka Beyani.

“Libyan authorities must share information about their loved ones with themmeet with them and give them answers. silence is unacceptable“, stressed Auajjar who also repeatedly requested “answers on the status of multiple investigations related to serious human rights violations”, from which he did not obtain “any satisfactory answer”

The members of the Mission met in Tripoli between January 23 and 26 with victims and people representing them who provided testimonies related to extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, human trafficking, internal displacement, existence of graves common and funeral homes with corpses to which families do not have access.

Many of these people traveled from the cities of Benghazi, Sirte, Murzuk, Sebha and Misrata to meet with members of the mission in Tripoli. Its members had planned to go to Sabha, but the local authorities did not allow it despite repeated requests.

Normalization of arbitrary detentions

The experts also regretted not having been able to meet with the attorney general to obtain information on the many cases brought forward by victims who are under the mandate of his investigation.

“The state authorities we met with told us about their efforts to strengthen the rule of law, but these efforts have failed to achieve justice for the victims and their families,” Robinson said. “When the victims spoke to us you could see their deep sense of loss. Their anxious desire for justice has gone unfulfilled, in many cases for years.”

The specialists also regretted that the authorities did not provide them with access to prisons and detention centers throughout the country, despite repeated requests.

Regarding this point, Chaloka Beyani stated that “arbitrary detention in Libya has become widespread as a tool of repression and political controlwhich explains why thousands of people are deprived of their liberty, often in poor conditions, without procedural guarantees or access to justice”.

During the meetings of the members of the Mission with Libyan officials, the experts called, like other UN experts, for the immediate release of Iftikhar Boudra, a woman detained in Benghazi four years ago following critical comments she made in social networks about militarization in the East. Boudra is said to be seriously ill, and her family says that she has not been allowed to visit her for eight months.

The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya was created by the Human Rights Council in June 2020 with the mandate to investigate the alleged violations and abuses of international human rights standards and international humanitarian law committed in that country since 2016.