DUSHANBE, January 28, Asia-Plus – The BBC reported on January 28 that it has been told by inmates at a jail in Misrata that they were beaten, whipped and given electric shocks.
The allegations come exactly 100 days after Col Gaddafi”s violent death at the hands of former rebels.
The BBC reporter managed to get access to the Misrata detention center. Inmates told him they had been subjected to prolonged beatings and were whipped with electric cables. None of the alleged abuse occurred at the prison itself. “I was taken for questioning at a site used by the national army,” said one man who wished to remain anonymous. In other cases prisoners said the abuse had occurred before they had arrived at the jail.
The people running the Misrata detention center told the BBC they were aware of inmates being taken away to be tortured, but were powerless to stop it. Many detention centers are controlled by militias unaccountable to the government.
International human rights groups have said such incidents are widespread in Libya.
The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said it is suspending its work in one Misrata detention center because of an alarming rise in torture cases. Detainees in the Libyan city of Misrata are being tortured and denied urgent medical care, leading Medecins Sans Frontieres to suspend its operations in detention centers in Misrata, MSF announced on January 26.
“Some officials have sought to exploit and obstruct MSF’s medical work,” said MSF General Director Christopher Stokes. “Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.”
After meeting with various authorities, MSF sent an official letter on January 9 to the Misrata Military Council, the Misrata Security Committee, the National Army Security Service, and the Misrata Local Civil Council, again demanding an immediate stop to any form of ill treatment of detainees.
“No concrete action has been taken,” said Stokes. “Instead, our team received four new torture cases. We have therefore come to the decision to suspend our medical activities in the detention centers.”
MSF will continue its mental health support activities in schools and health facilities in Misrata, as well as its assistance to 3,000 African migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons in and around Tripoli.
“The torture is being carried out by officially recognized military and security entities as well as by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework,” a spokesman for London-based Amnesty International said on January 27.
The Associated Press reported on January 27 that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern about the treatment of prisoners, but especially sub-Saharan Africans who the militias assume to have been fighting for Col Gaddafi. “There”s torture, extrajudicial executions, rape of both men and women,” she told the Associated Press news agency. “Something has to be done immediately to assist the authorities, for the state to take control of these detention centers,” she said.
The United Nations estimates that about 8,500 people – most accused of being Gaddafi loyalists – are being held in prisons across Libya.
