Human rights in Libya

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

According to the U.S. Department of State’s annual human rights report for 2004, Libya’s authoritarian regime continued to have a poor record in the area of human rights. Some of the numerous and serious abuses on the part of the government include poor prison conditions, arbitrary arrest and detention, prisoners held incommunicado, and political prisoners held for many years without charge or trial. The judiciary is controlled by the state, and there is no right to a fair public trial. Libyans do not have the right to change their government. Freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, and religion are restricted. Independent human rights organizations are prohibited. Domestic violence against women appears to be widespread, and there have been reports of trafficking in persons. Ethnic and tribal minorities suffer discrimination, and the state continues to restrict the labor rights of foreign workers. One of the more problematic issues is that of six foreign health workers (five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor) who were accused of deliberately infecting 426 children with HIV-tainted blood in a hospital in 1999. On May 6, 2004, a Libyan court sentenced the workers to death. International observers have expressed concerns over the confessions of the health workers, which appear to have been forced.

In 2005, the Freedom House rated political rights in Libya as "7" (1 representing the most free and 7 the least free rating), civil liberties as "7" and gave it the freedom rating of "Not Free".^[1]

[edit] References

• Library of Congress country study

[edit] External links

• Censorship in Libya - IFEX

This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain.