On 28 March, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on the release of the UN’s Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya (FFM). The article was authored by Hanan Salah, the Associate Director for HRW’s Middle East and North Africa Division. Salah noted that the FFM ‘documented sweeping abuses including “repression of civic groups, arbitrary detention, murder, rape, enslavement, extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance”’ and suggested that Libyan armed forces and security groups may have committed a ‘wide array of war crimes and crimes against humanity’. Salah reported that indeed, human rights conditions in Libya are and remain ‘precarious’, noting the recent imposition of ‘unworkable conditions on civic groups in terms of registration, financial reporting, and activities’ by Libyan authorities. In the article, Salah asserts that it is critical for scrutiny of Libya’s human rights issues to continue. Expressing concern over the anticipated end of the FFM’s mandate without renewal on the horizon, Salah calls the FFM’s recommendation for the UN Humans Right Council (UNHRC) to establish independent international investigative mechanisms in Libya ‘crucial’.
Read the full article here.