Sukaina al-Hadi Hares was detained twice during the conflict © Amnesty International
By Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s researcher in Libya.
One of the grimmest features of the armed conflict in Libya has been the spate of arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances of thousands of suspected opponents of Colonel Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi. Some are still missing, while those who have been freed bring back tales of torture, rape and extrajudicial executions.
The vast majority of the disappeared were men suspected of supporting the ‘17 February Revolution’, but women were not excluded.
One is Sukaina al-Hadi Hares, a 37-year-old nurse, who was detained on two occasions during the conflict.
Continue reading ‘Women who defied al-Gaddafi regime not spared from brutal jails’
There is heavy damage to buildings in central Zawiya © Amnesty International
By Amnesty International’s Libya research team.
It’s hard to sleep at night here now because of armed men letting off countless rounds of celebratory gunfire. There’s much they’re overjoyed about – the latest victory, the capture of al-Gaddafi loyalists, or release of detainees from jail.
In the hospitals of al-Zawiya and Tripoli lie the numerous casualties from this kind of firing. The message that this behaviour is dangerous doesn’t seem to have got through yet.
Young children are being shot by accident – like eight year-old Mai’d Mahmoud al-Mashat, who was hit by a stray bullet in his thigh on the evening of 23 August in the Janzour neighbourhood of Tripoli. He was just sitting in his father’s car at the time, near the window. His neighbourhood was the site of anti-government protests in late February and that night they were celebrating the opposition advances.
Continue reading ‘Mourning amid the celebration in Tripoli’
الطريق الساحلي في منطقة زاوية المحجوب حيث تمركزت القوات الموالية لللقذافي. © منظمة العفو الدولية
إعداد فريق منظمة العفو الدولية بمصراته
كل ما أريد أن أعرفه هو ما إذا كان حيا أم ميتا، فعلى الأقل لو عرفنا [أنه قتل] لأقمنا العزاء، وبدأنا في تضميد الجراح”، هذا ما قالته الأخت الكبرى لمصطفى إبراهيم البغدادي
مصطفى، الذي يبلغ من العمر 19 عاما، اختفى منذ قرابة شهرين في ظروف غامضة في منطقة كرزاز الواقعة إلى الجنوب من وسط مدينة مصراته. وهذه الكلمات التي قالتها أخته ردد مثلها الكثير من الأسر التي تعيش في مصراته، وسط حالة دائمة من الترقب والعذاب لجهلهم بمصير ومكان ذويهم.
Continue reading ‘
الاختفاءات والوفيات تمزق الأسر في مصراته
‘
Ninety-year old Ali Abdallah Sliman Shkay was killed when his home was shelled © Amnesty International
By Amnesty International’s team in Misratah
Young and old, women and children, killed, injured, disappeared – every family we have met here in Misratah has had its share of pain and loss.
At a house in the Gheiran neighbourhood, south of the city centre, we met the family of ‘Omar Ahmad Al-Gweiri, a 74-year-old farmer and father of five, who was shot dead on the way to his farm on 11 March.
Continue reading ‘Pain and loss hits every family in Misratah’
