Hanaa Mohamed
According to the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), at least 60 people have been arbitrarily detained in the first half of 2024 alone.
For more than a year, Jumaa al-Darsi, 40, has scoured Benghazi and beyond for any trace of his brother, Libyan lawmaker Ibrahim al-Darsi, 47, who disappeared in Benghazi in 2024, after attending a military parade marking the tenth anniversary of “the Dignity Revolution,” the uprising led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army (LNA).
Al-Darsi has knocked on doors and called in old favours. He has followed whispers and chased rumours. But every path has led to silence. His family still does not know why he was taken, or if he will ever come home. His brother’s disappearance is among the countless cases in Libya, where abductions have become a weapon against dissent, utilised by the rival factions and infighting militias that have carved up the country since 2011.
“We still cling to any hope of finding Ibrahim, but the security and human rights authorities aren’t cooperating with us on my brother’s case,” al-Darsi told The New Arab. “His situation remains unknown. We don’t know which entity or individuals kidnapped him or the reason behind it.”
According to the UN human rights office and United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), at least 60 people have been arbitrarily detained in the first half of 2024 alone for peacefully expressing their political views. The practice, entrenched under Muammar Gaddafi to muzzle critics, has endured even after his ouster through years of upheaval and division.
Today, both the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) and the eastern Government of National Stability (GNS), alongside their affiliated armed groups and militias, continue to detain opponents in secret locations, cutting them off from their families and denying them legal counsel. The UN has noted that “these unlawful practices have created a climate of fear, shrinking civic space, and eroding the rule of law.”
No safety in Libya
According to human rights activist Ahlam al-Warfali, the systematic violations committed by law enforcement and security agencies in detention centres and prisons in eastern and western Libya against activists, journalists, and human rights defenders constitute “crimes against humanity punishable under international law.”
“There’s no safety in Libya,” she said to TNA. “Everyone is vulnerable to kidnapping, torture, and sometimes killing, for refusing the presence of certain groups or publishing political posts criticising the current political landscape.” Media outlets and social media users had circulated photos and video footage reportedly of al-Darsi, showing him chained and stripped of his clothes in a secret prison in eastern Libya.
Al-Darsi refused to comment on the widely shared images, saying only: “My brother is still missing, and the security authorities aren’t providing us with any information about his condition or whereabouts.”
Most recently, the abduction of human rights activist Youssef al-Taweel in Misrata—seized from his workplace after he criticised Fathi Bashagha, the former interior minister in Fayez al-Sarraj’s Government of National Accord, the predecessor to the GNU, and a powerful militia leader who later rose to become prime minister under Libya’s Parliament in 2021—sent shockwaves through the city. “This confirms that Libya has neither freedom of opinion nor expression,” she added.
Security expert Mohamed al-Mahshash argues that impunity for perpetrators of these crimes increases the severity of these brutal acts, considering that security and executive agencies do not operate according to laws but according to orders and instructions they receive from dominating figures heads in either eastern or western Libya.
“These acts don’t only affect Libyans, activists, and journalists, but also foreigners, migrants, and asylum seekers, often committed out of revenge or to obtain confessions under duress, or based on political or ideological affiliation, despite repeated demands and calls for the necessity of putting an end to such operations,” he remarked.
The Libyan watchdog Monitoring Crimes in Libya reported that in November, security forces linked to the GNU in Tripoli arrested more than 200 asylum seekers, mostly Sudanese and Nigerian nationals, among them women and children.
The organisation also held the GNU responsible for the wave of arbitrary arrests, pointing most recently to the case of Abdel Moneim Rajab al-Marimi, a 51-year-old activist and journalist who died from severe injuries after falling from the third floor of the Public Prosecutor’s office in Tripoli. He had been seized in Tripoli in July by armed men and handed over to the Internal Security Agency over his critical political and human rights views.
Social media users have also circulated in August leaked footage showing the conditions inside prisons run by the Special Deterrence Forces, known as Rada, a hard-line Islamist paramilitary unit that controls Mitiga International Airport. The videos appear to reveal the violence and torture inflicted on detainees within the airport. The group is also accused of torturing and killing Sharaf al-Din Hamdan, who had been arbitrarily detained for more than 11 years without trial.
Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s government ordered an assault on Rada in May, after the militia affiliated with the Presidential Council had expanded its grip over parts of Tripoli. The government also demanded the release of all detainees held in its prisons without legal justification. But after the recent cease-fire, their fate remains uncertain.
In a 6 July interview, Dbeibah insisted that the inmates of Mitiga prison be referred to the Office of the Attorney General and that control of Mitiga International Airport be transferred to the Ministry of Transport.
Unknown fates
Women, girls, and female human rights activists and journalists face enforced and arbitrary disappearance and various forms of torture, violence, and assault in the absence of legal protection for women.
Among them is Libyan lawmaker Siham Sergiwa, who has been missing for more than six years, and whose alleged leaked photos recently reignited debate about her unknown fate since her kidnapping. The circulated images showed a body believed to be MP Sergiwa after being assaulted and killed by forces affiliated with the LNA in Benghazi.
These leaks sparked condemnation from the Council of Elders and Notables of Misrata over what Sergiwa was subjected to after being taken from her home and tortured.
Council member Khalifa Lamloum told TNA that this act was committed by gangs operating outside the law, executing authorities’ instructions without recourse to law, calling on the Attorney General and judicial authorities to “open an investigation into the leaked photos, verify their authenticity, and urgently hold those involved accountable.”
“If these acts go unpunished, they will only entrench impunity and reinforce the dominance of armed force and violence,” al-Warfali warned.
“There are no reliable figures on the kidnapped, detained, or missing across Libya, and the victims range from activists and journalists to community elders, targeted for their political or tribal affiliation or simply for views critical of the authorities in both east and west. Many are even coerced into recording false confessions to crimes that may not exist,” al-Warfali concluded.
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