By Libya Herald Reporters.
Tunis, 21 December 2015:
Tunisian Nobel Peace Laureate Abdessatar Ben Moussa has told a pro-Qaddafi meeting in Tunis that supporters . . .[restrict]jailed in Libya should be granted an amnesty. It is being claimed that up to 25,000 people have been detained illegally in Libya since the start of the Revolution.
The Qaddafists are demanding that the amnesty law (Number 6), approved in July by the House of Representatives, should be applied immediately. The call came at a meeting of the Supreme Council of Libyan Tribes and Cities in the Tunisian capital.
Ben Moussa, head of the Tunisian Human Rights League, told the gathering that he supported the amnesty demand but he took care to insist that it should not cover crimes committed during the Qaddafi era.
“The amnesty starts after the fall of Qaddafi,” he said, “which means that it doesn’t deal with crimes against humanity or the terrorist acts under Qaddafi’s regime.”
The SCLTC is headed by Ajili Brini, a former regime official. He urged the EU, UN, Arab League and African Union to put pressure on the Libyan authorities, which he said were in fact militias.
“No less than 20,000 or 25,000 Libyans have been jailed without proper charges or without a fair trial since the end of the revolution” said Brini, adding that the amnesty was not designed to cover common criminals.
Mabrouk Kourchid, a lawyer for Mahmoud Baghdadi, the former prime minister who has been sentenced to death by a Tripoli court, said “Qaddafists exist. They are Libyans.These people make up more than half the population. If Libya wants to consider its future, the amnesty is a suitable solution.” he said.
The Tunis meeting drew representatives of the Arab League, African Union and the Arab Commission for Human Rights as well as Ben Moussa, one of the quartet of Tunisian human rights activists who were awarded this year’s Nobel Peace prize. [/restrict]
