Thousands of people being held in unlawful arbitrary detention by armed groups in Libya are being tortured and abused, according to a UN report released this week.
Released on Tuesday, the report – compiled by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in cooperatioon with the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, estimates that as many as 6,500 people were being held in official prisons overseen by the Judicial Police of the Ministry of Justice as of October last year while thousands more were being held in a “multitude” of other facilities which were nominally under the authority of the defence and interior ministries or being run directly by armed groups.
“Armed groups across Libya, including those affiliated with the state, hold thousands of men, women and children in prolonged arbitrary and unlawful detention, and subject them to torture and other human rights violations and abuses,” the report states. “Victims have little or no recourse to judicial remedy or reparations, while members of armed groups enjoy total impunity. “
The report says that rather than rein in armed groups, “successive Libyan governments have increasingly allowed them to assume law enforcement functions, including arrests and detention; paid them salaries; and provided them with equipment and uniforms”.
“As a result, armed groups’ power has grown unchecked and they have remained free of effective government oversight,” the report said. “To the best of OHCHR/UNSMIL’s knowledge, at the time of writing, no commanders or members of armed groups have been held accountable for human rights violations or abuses committed since the 2011 armed conflict, further emboldening them and entrenching their sense of impunity.”
The report said that since renewed conflict broke out in 2014, armed groups on all sides have rounded-up “suspected opponents, critics, activists, medical professionals, journalists and politicians” as well as taken hostages for the purpose of prisoner exchanges or ransoms.
“Men, women and children across Libya are arbitrarily detained or unlawfully deprived of their liberty based on their tribal or family links and perceived political affiliations. Those detained arbitrarily include individuals held in relation to the 2011 armed conflict, many without charge, trial or sentence for over six years.”
The report, the findings of which are based on firsthand accounts and other information gathered from sources inside Libya, says facilities run by armed groups – the largest of which is believed to be in western Libya, holding an estimated 2,600 men, women and children – are “notorious for endemic torture and other human rights violations or abuses”.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the report “lays bare” not only “appalling abuses and violations”, “but the sheer horror and arbitrariness of such detentions, both for the victims and their families”.
He joined with the report’s authors in calling for an end to the violations and abuses and those responsible for crimes to be held to account.
