By Libya Herald staff.
Tunis, 3 August 2015:
The Tripoli-based National Council of Civil Liberties and Human Rights (NCCLHR) has demanded an immediate . . .[restrict]end to military operations in Benghazi, blaming Operation Dignity led by General Khalifa Hafter almost entirely for the city’s misery and destruction.
“For more than a year, the city of Benghazi has been attacked and bombed by various types of heavy weapons and air strikes by the troops of retired Brigade (sic) Khalifa Haftar,” said an NCCLHR statement issued today but dated for the day after tomorrow. Operation Dignity had been a disaster for Benghazi, it declared, and had led to the displacement and migration of more than a hundred thousand residents. Rather than defeating terrorism, its stated goal, it had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Libyan citizens and twice that in the number of those wounded. There had vast destruction of homes facilities and vital plants, it said. Among its several accusations, it said Hafter’s aircraft had used internationally banned cluster and gas bombs.
In what is being seen as a purely political statement, the organisation further accused Hafter’s forces of human rights violations including “random arrests, torture and degrading treatments in various illegal detention centres that are not subject to judicial police”.
However, although there was a call on the UN to investigate all crimes in the city, including assassinations, there was no condemnation in the statement of the other side to the conflict, of Ansar Al-Sharia, the Benghazi Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council or the Islamic State (IS), or any mention of crimes they had committed.
The NCCLHR used to be seen as balanced and with integrity, condemning injustice wherever it saw it, whether in Tripoli, Benghazi or anywhere. It had, for example, planned to appeal against the Political Isolation. But late last year, because of intimidation in the capital, it stopped its work.
In its present existence, the NCCLHR is regarded by international human rights organisations as no longer independent and instead as an “affiliate” of the continuing General National Congress (GNC).
Anther supposed human rights organisation, Human Rights Solidarity, also working out of Tripoli and seen as closely allied to the GNC, similarly invests much of its efforts attacking Hafter’s activities in the east but not those of Ansar Al-Sharia or IS.
Neither appear concerned about human rights abuses in Tripoli or anywhere else in the county. [/restrict]
