Human Rights in Libya
[source: wikipedia]
Libya under the authoritarian regime led by Gaddafi has a poor record of human rights, according to both the U.S. Department of State's report for 2004, and the Freedom House index of 2005.
Some of the numerous and serious abuses on the part of the regime include poor prison conditions, arbitrary arrest and detention, prisoners held incommunicado, and political prisoners held for many years without charge or trial. The judiciary is controlled by the state, and there is no right to a fair public trial. Libyans do not have the right to change their government. Fathi Eljahmi was a Libyan political prisoner who has received considerable attention in the west.
Freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, and religion are restricted. Independent human rights organizations are prohibited.
Ethnic and tribal minorities suffer discrimination, and the state continues to restrict the labor rights of foreign workers.
The government also constantly makes illegal land confiscations, taking away property from the ordinary citizen. Citizens receive little or no compensation for these land grabs which the government justifies as being road expansions and pipe space for the Great Manmade River.
Gaddafi's Revolutionary committees resemble similar systems in communist countries and reportedly 10 to 20 percent of Libyans work in surveillance for these committees, a proportion of informants on par with Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Kim Jong-il's North Korea.
The surveillance takes place in government, in factories, and in the education sector. Engaging in political conversations with foreigners is a crime punishable by three years of prison in most cases.
In any case, Gaddafi removed foreign languages from school curriculum. One protester in 2011 described the situation as: "None of us can speak English or French. He kept us ignorant and blindfolded".
Gaddafi has paid for murders of his critics around the world. As of 2004, Libya still provides bounties for critics, including 1 million dollars for Ashur Shamis, a Libyan-British journalist. The regime has often executed opposition activists publicly and the executions are rebroadcast on state television channels.
Abu Salim prison is a high security prison in Tripoli which human rights activists and other observers often describe as "notorious". Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry into deaths that occurred there in 1996, an incident which Amnesty International and other news media refer to as the Abu Salim prison massacre. Human Rights Watch believes that 1,270 prisoners were killed, and calls it a "site of egregious human rights violations."
Most states and supranational bodies have condemned Gaddafi's use of military and mercenaries against Libyan civilians during the 2011 Libyan uprising. After an emergency meeting on 22 February, the Arab League suspended Libya from taking part in council meetings and Moussa issued a statement condemning the "crimes against the current peaceful popular protests and demonstrations in several Libyan cities." Libya was suspended from the UN Human Rights Council by a unanimous vote of the UN General Assembly, citing the Gaddafi government's use of violence against protesters. A number of governments, including Britain, Canada, Switzerland, the United States, Germany and Australia have taken action to freeze assets of Gaddafi and his associates.
On 26 February, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously in a resolution to impose strict sanctions, including targeted travel bans, against Gaddafi's government, as well as to refer Gaddafi and other members of his regime to the International Criminal Court for investigation into allegations of brutality against civilians, which could constitute crimes against humanity in violation of international law.
History of Libya under Gaddafi
[source: wikipedia]
Muammar al-Gaddafi became de facto leader of Libya on 1 September 1969 when he led a group of young Libyan military officers to stage a coup d'état against King Idris I, who would then be exiled to Egypt. The new administration, headed by the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), abolished the monarchy and the constitution, and proclaimed the new Libyan Arab Republic. Gaddafi renamed the Libyan Arab Republic to Jamahiriya in 1977, a neologism translating to "state of the masses", styling himself "Leader and Guide of the Revolution" and forming "people's committees". He resigned from the position of General Secretary of the General People's Congress of Libya in 1979, but remained in power as de-facto dictator throughout the 1980s to 2000s, running the country a single party police state.
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