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Picture belonging to the same article: © 2014
Daniel Etter/Redux - Detainees in Libya's al-Hamra migrant
detention center, one of nineteen official detention centers where migrants and
asylum seekers are held, near the town of Gharayan, crowd the entrance to the
shipping container where many detained for months on April 15, 2014.
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(Tripoli) – Guards in migrant detention centers under Libyan
government control have tortured and otherwise abused migrants and asylum
seekers, including with severe whippings, beatings, and electric shocks.
Human Rights Watch released preliminary findings from its April 2014
investigation in the country which included interviews with 138 detainees,
almost 100 of whom reported torture and other abuses. The alleged abuses,
massive overcrowding, dire sanitation conditions, and lack of access to
adequate medical care in eight of the nine centers that Human Rights Watch
visited breach Libya’s obligations not to engage in torture and cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment.
“Detainees have described to us how male guards strip-searched women
and girls and brutally attacked men and boys,” said Gerry Simpson, senior
refugee researcher. “The political situation in Libya may be tough, but the
government has no excuse for torture and other deplorable violence by guards in
these detention centers.”
