25 May 2005
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INVESTIGATES FREE EXPRESSION CONDITIONS
While Libya has taken important steps to improve its human rights record over the past year, serious problems remain, including restrictions on freedom of expression, says Human Rights Watch. The IFEX member recently conducted a three-week mission to the country to investigate human rights conditions, its first-ever visit to Libya.
The watchdog says the government provided access to a wide range of high-level officials, as well as police stations, an immigration detention center, five prisons and more than two dozen prisoners, who were interviewed in private. Government guides, however, escorted Human Rights Watch researchers and controlled unauthorized contact with individuals.
During the mission, Human Rights Watch researchers investigated freedom of the press, prison conditions, methods used in Libya's anti-terrorism campaign, women's rights and the rights of migrants and refugees.
Human Rights Watch interviewed Libya's most well-known political prisoner, Fathi al-Jahmi, who has been held for more than 13 months without trial at an internal security facility in Tripoli.
Al-Jahmi was arrested on 26 March 2004 after he gave interviews to international media criticizing Libya's leader, Col. Muammar Qaddafi, and calling for internal reform. He faces charges of trying to overthrow the government, slandering Col. Qaddafi and contacting foreign authorities. The third charge, he told Human Rights Watch, is due to conversations he had with a US diplomat in Tripoli.
Human Rights Watch also interviewed writer and Internet columnist Abdul Rezak al-Mansouri, who has been held incommunicado by internal security agents since 12 January after writing articles critical of the Libyan government for the website www.akhbar-libya.com. According to a top security official, al-Mansouri has been charged with possession of an unlicensed pistol.
Al Mansouri showed no signs of physical mistreatment, said Human Rights Watch. However, he has not been allowed any visits since his arrest and has not been allowed to see a lawyer.
Human Rights Watch says Libyan laws continue to criminalise free expression. Under the Penal Code, anyone who criticises Qaddafi or the 1969 revolution that brought him to power can be sentenced to death.
Libyan authorities told the watchdog that a revised Penal Code will be presented to parliament for debate by the end of this year. Under the new code, the death penalty "will be reduced to the greatest possible extent," although it will remain for the "most dangerous crimes" and for "terrorism," according to Secretary of Justice Ali Umar Abu Bakr.
Visit:
- Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/05/23/libya10983.htm
- Human Rights Watch Updates on Libya: http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=libya
- Reporters Without Borders: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE190022004
- Amnesty International Report: http://www.rsf.org/IMG/doc/050523mansouri_article_GB.doc
- English Translation of an Article Written by al-Mansouri: http://www.rsf.org/IMG/doc/050523mansouri_article_GB.doc
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