The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya on Sunday rebuked the Libyan authorities for their «unacceptable silence» regarding the victims of human rights violations and called on them to inform the families of ongoing investigations.
The members of the Mission met in Tripoli from January 23 to 26 with victims and representatives who provided testimonies related to extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, human trafficking, internal displacement, the existence of mass graves and mortuaries with corpses to which the families have no access.
The victims «have been waiting too long for justice» and the Libyan authorities «must share with them information about their loved ones,» the Mission said in a statement following its latest visit to the country.
Thus, it calls for «firm measures to provide justice and compensation to the large number of victims who suffered violations of human rights and international humanitarian law» and reproaches that it is «a situation that has been going on for a long time».
«The families of the victims have been waiting too long for justice to be done,» said the Mission’s chairman, Mohammad Auajjar. Human rights experts Tracy Robinson and Chaloka Beyani are also participating in the Mission.
«The Libyan authorities must share with them information about their loved ones, meet with them and give them answers. Silence is unacceptable,» reiterated Auajjar, who also asked for «answers on the status of multiple investigations into serious human rights violations,» from which he did not get «any satisfactory response.»
ARBITRARY DETENTIONS The experts regretted not having been able to meet with the Libyan attorney general to obtain information on the numerous cases brought by victims under the mandate of his investigation.
«The state authorities we met with have told us about their efforts to strengthen the rule of law, but these efforts have failed to deliver justice for the victims and their families,» Robinson has noted. «When the victims spoke with us, the deep sense of loss was palpable. Their desire for justice that has gone unmet, in many cases for years,» he added.
The specialists also lamented the authorities’ failure to provide them with access to prisons and detention centers across the country, despite repeated requests.
Chaloka Beyani said in this regard that «arbitrary detention in Libya has become widespread as a tool of repression and political control, which explains why thousands of people are deprived of their liberty, often in poor conditions, without due process or access to justice.»
The experts have called on Libyan officials to immediately release Iftijar Budra, a woman arrested in Benghazi four years ago following critical comments she made on social media about militarization in the East. Budra is reportedly seriously ill and her family says she has not been allowed to visit her for eight months.
The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya was established by the UN Human Rights Council in June 2020 with a mandate to investigate alleged violations and abuses of international human rights and international humanitarian law committed in that country since 2016.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
