Torture in pro-NATO Libyan prisons

This video is called Libya Secret Files On British Libyan Relations Found By Human Rights Watch.

By Tom Mellen:

New Libyan NTC regime torturing prisoners

Sunday 02 October 2011

A US human rights watchdog has called on Libya‘s new regime to stop its loyalists from rounding up suspected opposition forces and torturing and enslaving them.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned on Friday that militiamen loyal to the Nato-backed National Transitional Council have locked up thousands of people on suspicion of supporting former leader Muammar Gadaffi, including women and children – and none have been brought before a judge.

It said that some detainees reporting beatings and electric shocks had the scars to prove it.

HRW staff recently visited 20 detention camps in Tripoli and interviewed 53 inmates, including 37 Libyan citizens and 16 sub-Saharan Africans.

The investigators discovered that NTC-aligned gunmen had forced some dark-skinned Libyan people and migrants to do manual labour, including carrying heavy materials, cleaning and renovating buildings around Tripoli or on military bases.

Detainees who reported abuse said guards beat them, sometimes daily.

HRW did not to release the names of detainees and facilities for fear of reprisals against those interviewed.

A sub-Saharan African man identified only as Mohammed wept as he showed HRW investigators welts on his arms, back and neck from beatings by guards at a small detention camp.

And seven prisoners in two facilities, including women, said guards had subjected them to electric shocks.

HRW regional director Joe Stork said: “After all that Libyans suffered in Muammar Gadaffi’s jails, it’s disheartening that some of the new authorities are subjecting detainees to arbitrary arrest and beatings today.

“The NTC owes it to the people of Libya to show that they will institute the rule of law from the start.”

The NTC is struggling to form a new government amid infighting over government posts and continued resistance to its rule in several towns.

Italian energy giant Eni has signed a deal to restart oil and natural gas plants under Italian management.

The firm hopes to get natural gas, another mainstay of Libya‘s economy, flowing to Italy again through the Greenstream pipeline by October.

A Jersey-based oil privateer revealed a push into Libya today even as the battles between the Nato-backed rebels and ousted leader Muammar Gadaffi’s supporters continue to rage: here.

On Saturday, the Red Cross visited Sirte, which has been under intense bombardment and shelling from NATO planes and ships, and by NATO’s ground forces of the NTC for the last three weeks: here.

Civilians fleeing Sirte describe desperate situation: here.

Sirte a ‘living hell,’ says aid group: here.

NATO countries led by the US, Britain, and France are committing terrible war crimes in the Libyan city of Sirte. In their frenzied drive to crush all remaining resistance in the North African state, NATO and its proxy militia forces aligned with the National Transitional Council are unleashing indiscriminate military force, killing civilians and destroying buildings and infrastructure throughout the urban centre: here.

NATO assault on Sirte inflicts more Libyan civilian casualties: here.

‘The rush by France, Britain and Italy in particular, to get their hands on Libyan oil will soon be too obvious to cover up. The so-called “revolutionaries” are no doubt busy signing deals handing over that previously nationalised resource to the neocolonialists who put them in power – robbing the people of Libya their country’s natural wealth’: here.

Who was among the very first Frenchmen to arrive in Benghazi in early March to encourage the Libyan insurgents? A representative of Total. And today the corporation can rub its hands – the French presidency’s rapid recognition of the CNT and defense of military intervention has put the corporation in the good graces of the future regime: here.

After a lengthy delay, the chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) in Libya, Mohammed Abdul-Jalil, announced the formation on Monday of a new “interim government.” Virtually all the current NTC ministers were reappointed, after Jalil admitted the council had been unable to come to any agreement over ministerial changes: here.

The Sierra Leone chapter of the Hugo Chavez International Foundation for Peace, Friendship and Solidarity has added its voice to those calling the military intervention by the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO in Libya as an attack on Africa rather than upholding human rights: here.

Washington urged Nato members today to plough more resources into the military alliance: here.