Reply #63: Human Rights Watch has not found evidence of killings of Africans in Tripoli

[tabatha]

Mass Arrests, Fear of Mercenaries
Over the past week security forces newly operating in neighborhoods around the capital, staffed mostly by armed young men, have conducted mass arrests of migrant workers from other African countries such as Chad, Sudan, Niger, and Mali, holding them in makeshift detention facilities, including a school and a soccer club. Human Rights Watch visited two such facilities and one prison, where the majority of African detainees interviewed claimed to be migrant workers detained simply because of their nationality and that they were not pro-Gaddafi mercenaries. Prior to the uprising, between 1 and 2 million African migrant workers were in Libya.

Human Rights Watch has not found evidence of killings of Africans in Tripoli or systematic abuse of detainees, but the widespread arbitrary arrests and frequent abuse have created a grave sense of fear among the city’s African population, Human Rights Watch said.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/09/04/libya-stop-arbitrary-arrests-black-africans

Libya's new leadership rejects Amnesty claim of abuses
LIBYA’s new leadership hit back yesterday at a report accusing it of permitting attacks against civilians accused of supporting Muammar Gadafy and black migrant workers.

Justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi said any crimes committed were not the work of rebel forces. “They are not the military they are only ordinary people.”

Libya’s authorities say that it is difficult to regulate a revolutionary movement that mostly remains outside National Transitional Council (NTC) control.

Amnesty International’s report blamed the majority of abuses in the Libyan conflict on forces loyal to Col Gadafy, listing abuses including murder, torture and bombardment of civilian areas.

Amnesty said that it had yet to get a full picture of abuses, with the war still raging in parts of Libya, but it called on the governing NTC, now installed in Tripoli, to take action.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0914/1224304081758.html