25 May 12 | Uncategorized
In a talk at Chatham House in London today, Libya’s interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Kib talked about “re-establishing the state” in Libya after 42 years of Gaddafi’s brutal rule and about the path towards elections due next month. He said the interim government is “committeed to enhancing respect for human rights”.
Challenged on Law 37, passed at the start of May, which restricts freedom of speech, El-Kib defended the law as necessary during a time of transition when there is still what he called “a tremendous effort to destabilise the country”. He went on to say that “there are many who are trying to get us to a point where we cannot even hold the election.”
Law 37 prohibits “damaging” the 17 February revolution and also criminalises any insults to Islam, or the “prestige of the state or its institutions or judiciary, and every person who publicly insults the Libyan people, slogan or flag”. This law clearly undermines the right to free expression and risks undermining Libya’s transition to democracy since any free election must be based on open debate and respect for rights.
Prime Minister El-Kib said: “Once we get to elections and a general assembly is formed, I guarantee that such laws will disappear.” This however will depend in future on the national assembly and not on the current interim Prime Minister and so there are no guarantees unless the law is repealed now.
Asked by Index about freedom of the press and of civil society, El-Kib said the media are flourishing in Libya and that he fully supports press freedom and an active civil society: “We encourage civil society, we meet with them, we participate in their events if we are invited.”
He also expressed his conviction that once elected the national assembly will guarantee human rights and freedom of the press when the new constitution is drawn up: “These reflect a set of values that caused the revolution, so you cannot ever think this is something we want to compromise.”
Until Law 37 is repealed, these positive sentiments will not reflect or presage a new Libya that fully respects human rights.
30 Apr 12 | Middle East and North Africa
When a repressive regime falls, there is a glorious moment when people are able to tell their stories for the first time. I was lucky enough to hit that moment last year when researching my book Sandstorm; Libya in the Time of Revolution.
For 42 years, Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya was pretty much closed to the outside world. Journalists got in occasionally, usually to interview the Brother Leader, but Libyans were banned from talking to foreigners. Media within the country were state controlled and severely restricted. So when Gaddafi was swept from power, Libyans were desperate to talk. In the Tripoli souk I came across 64 year old Mohammed Mustafa Saudi, crafting copper crescent moons to go on minarets. He told me how he loved Gaddafi when he came to power in 1969, but changed his mind in the 1970s when he saw people hanging from gibbets in the street, and when he was press-ganged into the army for 11 years. “All my life journalists have been asking me questions, because I’m the first guy you meet when you come into the metal-workers’ souk,” he said. “But I’ve never been able to tell my story before.” When I sat in the hotel lobby, people who had heard I was writing a book came up to ask if their stories could be included. “Do you want to hear my story of how MI6 and the CIA collaborated in my ‘extraordinary rendition’ back to Libya?” asked Sami al Saadi, one of two men who is suing the British government for delivering him into the hands of Gaddafi’s torturers.
Of course not everyone feels free. The dark-skinned Tawerga people, who fought for Gaddafi during the seige of the port of Misrata, have been driven from their village and now live in miserable camps. The Misrata brigades burnt down their homes, and they dare not rebuild not for fear of being merely silenced but of being killed. They talked to me, but only in the camp — there was no question of returning home. Many dark-skinned Libyans are accused by the militia who spear-headed the revolution of being mercenaries who fought for Gaddafi. Some have been detained and tortured, others are in hiding.
Yet this is nonetheless a time when most Libyans are talking as never before. Dozens of new newspapers and TV channels have started up. Some are the vanity projects of rich men, others are suspected of being a way of “image laundering”, enabling people who worked with Gaddafi to proclaim new, revolutionary credentials. Yet the fact that they are out there provides hope that freedom of speech may take hold in the new Libya.
In Sandstorm I quote a line from WH Auden: “They wept and quarrelled; freedom was so wild.” I think about that a lot. In Libya today they quarrel about everything — what kind of government they should have, the rules for political parties, whether the first elections can be held in June or not. It’s chaotic and dangerous. But it’s also glorious, because Libyans are speaking freely for the first time in 42 years.
Lindsey Hilsum is Channel 4 News International Editor and author of Sandstorm; Libya in the Time of Revolution
19 Mar 12 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Two British journalists who were arrested and accused of spying by a Libyan militia group have been released. Gareth Montgomery-Johnson and Nicholas Davies, who work for Iran’s state-owned Press TV were released on Sunday and cleared of all charges. The journalist’s were arrested on 23 February by a Misrata militia based in Tripoli in a direct challenge to the authority of the country’s government. The men were transferred to the custody of the Libyan government last Wednesday and released following questioning to establish if any crime had been committed.
