Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of Libya

Introduction

Human Rights Watch submits the following information regarding Libya’s human rights record since its third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in November 2020. It is neither a complete review of the recommendations supported by Libya during the last UPR cycle, nor is it a comprehensive assessment of its respect, protection and fulfillment of human rights. In 2020, Libya supported[1] 181 from a total of 285 recommendations it had received, citing conflicts with Sharia Law and Libya’s interim Constitution as reasons for rejecting recommendations including on removing restrictions on civil society and protecting human rights defenders, media and legal professionals. Libya also rejected recommendations on ratifying the optional protocol of the Torture Convention, lifting reservations toward the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and adopting asylum legislation. While vowing to “consider ratifying all outstanding international human rights instruments and update domestic legislation to bring it in line with the international treaties,” no such reforms took place.  

Since the last UPR cycle, two rival authorities in the East and West of the country have been vying for legitimacy and control, as affiliated armed groups operated with impunity, increasing repression against civic groups and free speech.Elections originally scheduled for December 2021 have been postponed indefinitely after Libyan stakeholders, under the UN’s aegis, failed to agree on a legislative and constitutional basis. Libya remains without a permanent constitution, with only the 2011 constituent covenant in force and a slew of outdated and repressive laws.

Freedom of Expression

Libyan authorities continued to crack down on freedom of speech and opinion and on the media. Provisions in Libyan laws unduly restrict freedom of expression including criminal penalties for defamation of officials, the Libyan nation and flag, and for insulting religion. The Penal Code stipulates the death penalty for “promoting theories or principles” that aim to overthrow the political, social or economic system.[2]

On September 14, 2022, the House of Representatives adopted a repressive anti-cybercrime law without meaningful consultations with civic groups or cybercrime experts. Four UN independent experts criticized the law as infringing on the rights of free expression, privacy, and free association and called for its revocation.[3] The law includes vague and overbroad terms such as the use of the internet and new technologies is lawful only if “public order and morality” are respected, and gives authorities the right to block content if it is deemed to contain “racial or regional slurs and extremist religious or denominational ideologies that undermine the security and stability of the society,” without defining these terms, and stipulates prison terms of up to 15 years and stiff fines. The law gives authorities extensive power to block access to websites and censor online content and conduct targeted or mass surveillance without a judicial order.[4]

Libyan authorities have continued to enforce a repressive 2014 counterterrorism law, which provides up to life imprisonment for vaguely defined “terrorist” acts such as “harming national unity” without requiring evidence of violence.[5]

A Benghazi military court in May 2020, sentenced freelance photojournalist Ismail Abuzreiba Al-Zway, who had been detained since December 2018, to 15 years in prison for “communicating with a TV station that supports terrorism,” in reference to his work with a private Libyan TV channel. Eastern authorities released him on September 11, 2021.[6]

On November 10, 2020, unidentified armed attackers assassinated lawyer Hanan al-Barassi, an outspoken critic of alleged widespread corruption, and violations by armed groups in eastern Libya, in broad daylight in Benghazi.[7]

Recommendations:

• Cease prosecuting citizens, activists and media workers for exercising their right to freedom of expression.
• Repeal the death penalty, including as a punishment for exercising freedom of expression and other rights.
• Eliminate all criminal offenses encroaching on freedom of expression from the Penal Code including articles 178, 195, 203, 205, 207, 220, 245, 438, and 439 and from Law no. 5-2014, which criminalizes “harming the February 17 revolution.”
• Repeal Anti-Cybercrime Law no. 5-2022, and Counterterrorism Law no. 3-2014.
• Eliminate criminal offenses of defamation and of insulting religion (articles 290, 291 of the Penal Code).

Freedom of Association

Libya’s Penal Code[8] contains articles undermining freedom of association, with broad and ambiguous definitions of criminal acts. The code stipulates the death penalty as a punishment for establishing or participating in unlawful organizations. The absence of a unified legal framework compounds the precarious situation of civil society stakeholders.[9] Several initiatives for a draft association law were underway, yet no proposal was passed by the House of Representatives at time of writing.

Since 2011, authorities have passed decrees and regulations with onerous registration, financial reporting, and administration requirements, effectively preventing groups from establishing or maintaining a presence in the country and prohibiting fundraising. Divided between competing branches, the Civil Society Commission, tasked with registering and approving civic organizations, has sweeping powers to inspect documents and cancel groups’ registration and work permits.[10]

Recommendations:

• Adopt an association law that protects the right to freedom of association and assembly consistently with international law and best practices.
• Amend the Penal Code (articles 206, 208, 209, and 210) to protect the right to association, especially to allow for the free establishment of associations without restriction on what they advocate or promote, except for (incitement to) violence, discrimination or other serious crimes.
• Repeal repressive Law no. 19-2001 regulating civil society organizations.

Human Rights Defenders and Activists

Authorities, backed by militias and abusive internal security apparatuses, have accelerated their crackdown on civic space, using draconian legacy laws to threaten, harass, and arbitrarily detain civil society members. As a result, scores of activists have fled the country, while those who remain have resorted to self-censorship and operating underground.[11]

Mansour Atti al-Maghrabi, former head of the Libyan Red Crescent in Ajdabiya and an activist, was forcibly disappeared on May 31, 2021, by eastern security authorities. The LAAF-affiliated Internal Security Apparatus in Ajdabiya released Atti without charge on March 22, 2022, after accusing him of “contacts with international organizations” including for supporting the 2021 elections.”[12]

In December 2022, a Tripoli court sentenced four men to three years in prison with hard labor for their involvement with the Tanweer movement accusing them of being “atheist, areligious, secular and feminist,” apparently based on forced confessions.[13]

Political analyst and activist Seraj Daghman, who was arbitrarily detained in October 2023 after he participated in a symposium on the deadly September 2023 Derna dams collapse,[14] died under dubious circumstances on April 19, 2024, at the Benghazi General Directorate for Internal Security.[15]

Recommendations:

• Promptly release arbitrarily detained human rights defenders, activists and members of civic groups.
• Protect activists from acts of violence and intimidation and foster a safe environment for civic engagement.
• Seek accountability for attacks on human rights defenders and activists. 

Migrants’ and Asylum Seekers’ Rights

Armed groups, Coast Guard forces, Libyan authorities, smugglers, and traffickers continued to arbitrarily detain migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Libya, subjecting them to ill-treatment, sexual assault, forced labor, inhumane conditions and extortion.[16] Thousands continued to attempt to cross from Libya to Europe, and Libyan Coast Guards—with EU technical and material support—continued to intercept boats and forcibly return people to abusive detention conditions in Libya.[17]

Tunisian border officials in 2023 reportedly coordinated with Libyan counterparts to transfer migrants to detention facilities managed by Libya's Directorate for Illegal Migration (DCIM) and the Libyan Coast Guard, where migrants faced serious abuses.[18]

In January 2025, Libya collectively expelled over 600 Nigerien migrants—including children—to the Libya-Niger border in the desert, after which at least two men died upon arriving in Niger.[19] This followed a collective expulsion of over 400 Nigeriens in July 2024.[20]

Between March 2024 and February 2025, at least three mass graves were discovered in Libya containing dozens of bodies reported to be migrants’, some with gunshot wounds.[21]

Recommendations:

• Cease arbitrary detention, ill treatment, collective expulsions and other abuses against migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.
• Ensure accountability for abuses against migrants and asylum seekers, for violations in detention and during boat interceptions.
• Ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.
• Enact an asylum law consistent with international refugee law and establish a fair and lawful national asylum procedure consistent with international obligations.

Internally Displaced Persons

Some 147,382 Libyans remained internally displaced as of May 2024.[22] These include residents of Tawergha who were driven out by anti-Gaddafi fighters in 2011 and remained unable to return due to the deliberate destruction of the town.[23] They also include thousands of families forcibly displaced by the LAAF from Benghazi, Ajdabiya, and Derna since 2014.[24]

On September 10, 2023, a massive storm hit Eastern Libya, mostly affecting Derna, killing at least 4,352 people, with 8,500 reported missing and over 44,800 displaced as of June 2024. Two dams upstream of Derna collapsed resulting in a torrent of water that hit residential areas mostly in the Derna valley, killing and injuring thousands. Libyan authorities have failed to hold those responsible accountable, or to provide adequate compensation and reconstruction support to survivors. [25]

Recommendations:

• Provide adequate support and assistance to facilitate the return of displaced populations.
• Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and reform national legislation to ensure compliance with international obligations and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

Women’s and Girls’ Rights

Libyan law does not specifically criminalize domestic violence and discriminates against women with respect to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and passing citizenship to their children. The Penal Code stipulates corporal punishment in cases of alleged adultery, allows rapists to escape prosecution if they marry their victim, and punishes sexual acts outside marriage with flogging and up to five years in prison.[26]

Armed groups have sometimes imposed repressive measures on women’s mobility.[27] The Government of National Unity’s (GNU) interior minister, Emad Trabelsi, announced on November 6, 2024, the establishment of a new “morality police” that would impose wide-ranging measures targeting primarily women and girls in western Libya. This would include mandatory hijab for women and girls in public, restrictions on travel for women and restrictions on mixing between men and women who are not related or married in public, without a legal basis and in violation of their rights. [28]

Recommendations:

• Lift Libya’s reservations to the Convention to End All Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
• Develop laws to prevent, criminalize, and respond to domestic violence that ensure adequate protection and services for survivors.
• Repeal Penal Code article 424 that allows a rapist to escape prosecution if he marries the victim.
• Repeal or amend current laws that discriminate against women, including article 375 of the Penal Code and guarantee women equality with men for all personal status matters.
• Terminate plans to impose additional restrictions on women’s mobility by “morality police.”

Judicial System

Libya’s judicial system remained dysfunctional and riddled with serious due process concerns. Judges, prosecutors, and lawyers remain at risk of harassment and attacks by armed groups. Lawyers in particular were unable to freely visit their detained clients to prepare their defense, were not systematically informed of court hearing and interrogation sessions ahead of time, and did not have adequate access to case documents. [29]

Since 2011, Libyan authorities have passed additional abusive laws and decrees, including on cybercrime,[30] counterterrorism,[31] and civic work.[32] Those add to a slew of draconian legacy laws,[33] including the Penal Code which provides for the death penalty, corporal punishment and harsh prison sentences.

Libyan legislation lacks laws effectively defining war crimes and crimes against humanity and does not contain provisions for witness or victim protection. Several provisions on serious crimes are inconsistent with international law, including on torture, enforced disappearance, rape, sexual and gender-based violence, slavery and trafficking.

Military courts in the East and West continue to prosecute civilians, including on vaguely defined “terrorism” related crimes, based on the 2017 amendment of the Military Procedures Code.[34]

Despite a de facto moratorium on executions since 2010, provisions for the death penalty can still be found in at least 30 articles of the Libyan Penal Code, including for peaceful speech and association.[35] As of September 2024, there were 250 detainees sentenced to death in Libya, including 105 who had exhausted all appeals.[36]

Recommendations:

• Conduct a comprehensive justice reform including by repealing and amending legislation that violates international conventions and laws.
• Repeal Law no. 4-2017 to ensure civilians are not tried in military courts.
• Abolish all corporal punishment provisions in Libyan legislation, (Penal Code, Law No. 70 of 1973, Law No. 52 of 1974, and Law No. 13 of 1425).
• Introduce and pass legislation on grave international crimes in domestic law.
• Abolish the death penalty and declare an immediate moratorium on executions.
• Ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Detention

While the Justice Ministry exercised at least nominal control over prisons under its control, armed groups and security agencies operated other detention facilities across the country that are marked by inhumane conditions, overcrowding, and torture and ill-treatment.[37]

Long-term arbitrary detention and provisional detention are commonplace. According to the general prosecutor, most detainees are held in pre-trial or pre-charge detention to achieve a “deterrent effect” on crime. [38]

The UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts for Libya found in December 2024 that five Libyan armed groups were responsible for “systematic violations…including arbitrary detention, murder and torture,” particularly targeting human rights defenders and journalists. It found that the Judicial Police, in coordination with the Al-Radaa apparatus, subjected civilians to “unlawful detention, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment.” The Panel also found “cases of unlawful arrest and detention, enforced disappearance, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment committed in temporary detention facilities” controlled by the Tripoli Internal Security Agency.[39]

Authorities in the East and West prevented the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya from visiting detention facilities throughout its mandate. They also prevented the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls from visiting such facilities during her December 2022 country visit.

Recommendations:

• Revise the Penal Code to include a definition of torture in accordance with article 1 of the UN Convention against Torture.
• Ratify the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention against Torture and create an independent inspectorate empowered to access and monitor all places of detention.
• Release all those detained without legal grounds and repeal article 177 of the Criminal Procedures Code, allowing prolonged pre-trial detention.
• Ensure that every detainee is speedily brought before an independent judicial body to rule on the legality and necessity of their detention.
• Conduct independent and transparent investigations into alleged abuses and deaths in detention throughout the country and hold perpetrators to account.

War Crimes

In June 2020, after the end of hostilities that started in 2019, [40] Libyan authorities discovered mass graves in Tarhouna[41] where hundreds went missing between 2013 and 2020 when the al-Kaniyat militia led by al-Kani family members effectively controlled the town. On October 4, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) unsealed arrest warrants against six former al-Kaniyat leaders and affiliates for their alleged responsibility in the war crimes of murder, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment, and torture in Tarhouna.[42] At writing, all six remain fugitives.

Between May and August 2022, rival armed groups clashed in and around Tripoli resulting in deaths and injuries of hundreds, including civilians.

Antipersonnel landmines and unexploded ordnance, including cluster munition remnants, continued to pose a risk, especially in the Tripoli region, where they killed or injured scores of civilians during and after the 2019-2020 Tripoli conflict. [43]

Recommendations:

• Incorporate into the Libyan Penal Code international crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, and enforced disappearance, clearly defined according to international standards.
• Intensify efforts to clear landmines and unexploded ordnance, consistently fund mine clearance activities, and provide adequate payments for victims.

International Criminal Court

The ICC prosecutor announced in November 2023 that his Office plans “to complete investigative activities in relation to the key lines of inquiry” in the Libya situation by the end of 2025. The ICC investigation into serious international crimes in Libya has been ongoing since February 15, 2011, yet unaccountable armed groups and militias continue to enjoy rampant impunity.[44]

Key Libyan judicial authorities, such as the GNU justice minister[45] and the General Prosecutor,[46] have contested the need for the Court’s involvement in Libya on cases the Court was investigating, with the justice minister even stating her objection to Libyans being tried outside of Libya as a matter of principle, reflecting unwillingness to meaningfully cooperate with the ICC. Consecutive interim authorities and governments, in the East and West of the country have failed to surrender Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, wanted by the Court for serious crimes in relation to the 2011 revolution. Libyan authorities did not arrest and surrender another ICC suspect, Osama Elmasry Njeem, after Italian authorities returned him to Libya on January 21.[47]

Recommendations:

• Cooperate with the ICC, including by surrendering Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Osama Almasry Njeem, and all other ICC fugitives on Libyan territory to the Court.

• Ratify the Rome Statute and align national legislation with the treaty.