Corporate report

Libya - in-year update December 2015

Published 21 April 2016

The human rights situation in Libya for the six months from July to December 2015 remained of serious concern. Armed groups continued to act with impunity. Indiscriminate weapons fire, including shelling and airstrikes by armed forces on both sides of the national conflict, caused high numbers of civilian casualties, particularly in Benghazi, and in the suburbs of Tripoli. In the South, persistent clashes between armed groups in Owbari and Sebha, and between the Zwaya and Tebu ethnic groups in Al Kufra city left dozens killed or wounded from both sides. The International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor said that no less than 60 civilian deaths per month were recorded up to November 2015 alone. Civilian and residential areas were besieged during outbreaks of conflict, restricting access to food, medical supplies, and sometimes water and electricity. Over 400,000 people were displaced by the conflict. The threat of Daesh grew, with bomb attacks and suppression of local civilians, including public summary executions, and cruel punishment such as amputations and flogging. Due to the political and security uncertainties and threats and assassinations against judges and prosecutors, the criminal justice system collapsed in most of Libya.

On 16 November, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a joint report on key human rights concerns from 1 January to 31 October 2015. The report stated that all parties in Libya “appear to be committing violations of international humanitarian law, including those that may amount to war crimes” as well as “gross violations or abuses of international human rights law”. The report highlighted the abuses faced by vulnerable civilians, such as internally displaced people, human rights defenders, migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. The report also documented gross abuses by Daesh.

On 5 August, Amnesty International published a report “Vanished off the Face of the Earth’’ on civilian abductions by armed groups in Libya. More than 600 abductions have been reported in Libya during 2014-2015, many in Benghazi, and Amnesty believes the actual total is likely to be larger. Civilians have been abducted for ransom, as hostages, and for their identity, including their religion. Journalists, civil society activists, members of the judiciary, public officials, aid workers, and foreign nationals are among those who have been taken.

In December, Human Rights Watch published “The Endless Wait: Long-Term Arbitrary Detentions and Torture in Western Libya”, which reported long-term arbitrary detention and torture and other ill-treatment in four prisons in Tripoli and Misrata controlled by the Justice Ministry of the Tripoli-based General National Congress (GNC).

On 14 October Solidarity Press said that 123 kidnapping incidents have been reported in the southern city of Sebha since the beginning of 2015.

A video made available by clearnews, an online news site, on 2 August 2015, appeared to show officials and guards at al-Hadba prison interrogating and ill-treating several detainees, including al-Saadi Gaddafi. Human rights defenders and civil society, including Human Rights Watch, called on the Libyan authorities responsible immediately to investigate the apparent ill-treatment of detainees.

Libya was ranked 154 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2015 World Press Freedom Index. During the period of this update, reports continued of harassment and intimidation of journalists and media outlets, including kidnappings, arrests and assaults. The Libyan Centre for Freedom of Press (LCFP) reported 26 violations against the press recorded in the fourth quarter of the year, as opposed to 23 recorded in the third quarter.

Both rival administrations took steps that intimidated and restricted media and civil society. On 21 November, the House of Representatives’ Minister of Information and Culture threatened to imprison employees of television stations and civil society organisations if they continued to deal with foreign organisations. In Tripoli on 27 December, the Ministry of Culture of “the National Salvation Government” (GNC) issued a decree banning civil society activists from attending meetings abroad without prior permission from the Ministry. FCO Minister for Human Rights, Baroness Anelay, expressed our concern at this attempt to restrict civil society activists.

A report released by the Libyan Victims Organisation for Human Rights stated that 40,000 citizens from Tawergha were displaced all over Libya and suffered attacks, abuse and robbery. The report highlighted the poor conditions of the camps and the need to provide immediate assistance to the Tawergha refugees. More positively, UNSMIL facilitated talks towards the resolution of the Tawergha issue, during the course of which the Misrata/Tarwergha Joint Committee also affirmed its full support to the political dialogue and the formation of a Government of National Accord.

Media reports noted that the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in Benghazi had distributed flyers restricting celebrations of Mawled “due to it being a heresy and against Shariah”. Sufi Muslims usually celebrate the annual Mawled through special rituals.

On 28 July, a criminal court at al-Hadba convicted 32 former Gaddafi regime officials of serious crimes during the 2011 Revolution. The court sentenced nine of them to death, including a son of Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Abduallah al-Sanussi, Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi and Abuzeid Dorda. The court sentenced another 23 former officials to prison terms ranging from five years to life, acquitted four defendants, and dropped charges against one and referred him to a medical institution. Human Rights Watch said there were persistent, credible allegations of fair trial breaches that warranted independent and impartial judicial review.

Daesh continued ruthlessly to suppress and murder Libyans in Sirte and elsewhere. News reports shared a video of Daesh forces executing two males for “adultery”. Reports also stated that Daesh publicly beheaded a Moroccan woman for “practising sorcery” and executed a Palestinian man for committing “fraud”. In August the head of the higher security committee in Sirte said that a Judge in Al-Khums Court of Appeal, Muhammad al-Namli, had been killed by groups which affiliate themselves to Daesh in Sirte. In August, Daesh fighters shelled densely populated parts of the city of Sirte, and committed indiscriminate acts of violence to terrorise the local population. The UK, together with the governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States, strongly condemned the ongoing barbaric acts by Daesh-affiliated terrorists in Libya.

There remained serious concerns about the ability of women to participate equally in society. While there were two women as full members of the dialogue committee and a separate women’s track, there were no women among the six people proposed to make up the new Presidential Council of a future Unity Government. Libyan civil society activists informed UK Diplomatic staff that women in the west of Libya were facing more restrictions, including harassment when they travelled alone. We were concerned by a report on 3 November that a hair salon for women and a language training centre in Gharyan (80 kms south of Tripoli) were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades. A note vowing more attacks was found at the hair salon demanding strict dress code for women and gender segregation in the city’s public schools.

On 10 November, the UK attended an international conference at the UN in Geneva at which Libyan women participants in the Libyan Women Action Plan for Peace presented their unified vision to the international community and issued a statement.

In her briefing to the UN Security Council on 5 November, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), said she was ‘’concerned that all sides, including the Libyan National Army (LNA), Libya Dawn, and the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL; and their respective allies, and international actors continue to commit attacks resulting in civilian casualties”. She added that during the reporting period a high number of civilian deaths had been attributed to Daesh and its allies. Ms. Bensouda said the UN-facilitated national dialogue towards the establishment of a Libyan Government of National Accord represented hope for transition to national unity and durable peace.

On 17 December, the Libyan Political Agreement was signed by a majority of the Libyan negotiating parties in Skhirat, Morocco, paving the way for a Government of National Accord to restore peace and stability. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond welcomed the agreement, and urged all parties to maintain momentum to ensure a lasting peace. The UK remains committed to helping the new government establish a country that is based upon democracy and the rule of law, with strengthened institutions, justice systems and accountability, an end to impunity, and increased civil society space.