On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances Human Rights Solidarity: “For the first time, in Two Decades, we have documented the enforced disappearance of women in Libya”

Today, Friday 30^th August, is the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances[i], adopted by General Assembly of the United Nations in 2010.

Enforced disappearance is considered “a grave and flagrant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms”[ii], it “places the persons subjected thereto outside the protection of the law and inflicts severe suffering on them and their families[iii]. It constitutes a violation of the rules of international law guaranteeing, inter alia, the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person and the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It also violates or constitutes a grave threat to the right to life.”[iv]

This day comes while the victims of enforced disappearances in Libya are still subjected to torture and constant fear for their lives, and their loved ones and families living between hope and despair; hope that the disappeared return and despair because of the longevity of their disappearance and lack of any information about their fate, and of the authorities’ lack of concern over their suffering, which is an ongoing violation of human rights of both the disappeared and their families.

Human Rights Solidarity (HRS) is deeply concerned about the increase in number of cases of enforced disappearances in Libya. In 2017, HRS documented 332 new[v] victims of enforced disappearances, in 2018 HRS documented 247 new cases[vi], and in the first 6 months of 2019 it documented 134 new cases[vii], joining the hundreds of cases of victims who had disappeared in previous years[viii]. HRS has also documented several cases of enforced disappearances of women in Libya in the first half of 2019. This is the first time HRS has documented such cases since it started its activity nearly two decades ago[ix], an unprecedented and grave development.

Benghazi, in the early hours of July 17^th, 2019, masked gunmen dressed in military uniforms stormed the house of Ms. Siham Sergewa, a member of the House of Representatives. The assailants abducted Ms. Sergewa, shot her husband and wounded him in the leg and severely beaten her 16-year-old son. Though no one has yet claimed responsibility of the abduction, nor has the perpetrators been definitively identified, testimonies from some witnesses indicate that the attackers are linked to the so-called “Libyan National Army”, led by retired Major General Khalifa Haftar[x]. Despite international appeals and demands[xi] for the release and safe return of Ms. Sergewa, her fate remains unknown. Ms. Siham Sergewa was kidnapped few hours after participating in a televised live discussion[xii], in which she expressed her opposition to the military assault on Tripoli.

In the city of Derna, militias loyal to Haftar abducted five women[xiii] from two families in the district of “Shiha al-Gharbiya” last May. There is no information on their fate[xiv].

The tragedy of the victims of enforced disappearances has been around in Libya for four decades. The fate of the hundreds of victims of enforced disappearances by the Gaddafi regime; like Jaballah Hamed Matar, Dr. Amru el-Nami, Ezzat el-Mugarief and the hundreds of victims of the massacre of Abu Saleem prison, is still unknown. Also unknown is the fate of the elected member of Benghazi Municipality Council, Mr. Essam Ghiryani; the Head of Benghazi Criminal Investigation Department, Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Salam el-Mahdawi; political activist Abdul Moez Bannon; the General Secretary of Libyan Scholars Association, Dr. Nader al-Omrani, Wael al-Maliki, disappeared near his home in 2014 when he was 17 years old, and the hundreds of other victims of enforced disappearances since the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011.

Some perpetrators of these crimes invoke the exceptional circumstances, political instability and the state of war which is prevailing in Libya, but the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance[xv] states in Article 1 (para. 2), “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for enforced disappearance.”

HRS calls on all parties to the conflict in Libya not to use Enforced Disappearance as a tool of war and demand the immediate and unconditional release of the abductees and remind all these parties that enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity[xvi], as defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court[xvii], and that there is no statute of limitation for such crimes.

Article 6 (paragraph 1/a) of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance[xviii] holds criminally responsible “Any person who commits, orders, solicits or induces the commission of, attempts to commit, is an accomplice to or participates in an enforced disappearance;” and the second paragraph of the same article states that “No order or instruction from any public authority, civilian, military or other, may be invoked to justify an offence of enforced disappearance.”. And the Libyan Penal Code criminalizes Enforced Disappearance[xix] and is punishable by imprisonment in accordance with Law No. (10) of 2013 “On the Criminalization of Torture, Forced Disappearance and Discrimination”.

HRS calls on the Libyan authorities, namely the Government of National Accord and its agencies;

• to take all necessary measures to end this phenomenon, and remind the GNA that in accordance with Libyan and international laws; every person deprived of liberty must be held in an officially designated place for detention and to be brought before a court without any delays,
• to sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance to promote human rights, and
• to renew the invitation[xx] to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to visit Libya as soon as possible.

[i] United Nations: “International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances 30 August”.

[ii] UN General Assembly Resolution (133/47): “Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances“, article 1 / paragraph 1, 12^th February 1993.

[iii] An example of the torment of victims of enforced disappearances, the criminal kidnapping and killing of the children of al-Sharshari family from the city of Sorman. On April 7th, 2018, the remains of the children were found nearly 30 months after they were kidnapped by a gang of criminals on December 2nd, 2015. The family of three children [Dhahab Riadh al-Sharshari (date of birth 9th April 2004), Abdelhamid Riadh al-Sharshari (27^th May 2007) and Mohammed Riadh al-Sharshari (15^th February 2009)] suffered for 30 months on the hope that their innocent children were alive and would return, only to discover that the criminal gang killed them few weeks after their abduction. Human Rights Solidarity: “Statement of Solidarity on finding the remains of the sons al-Sharshari”, 7^th April 2018, Arabic.

[iv] UN General Assembly Resolution (133/47), article 1 / paragraph 2.

[v] Human Rights Solidarity: “Crimes of Kidnappings & Assassinations in Libya in 2017”, 16^th March 2018, Arabic.

[vi] Human Rights Solidarity: “Crimes of Kidnappings & Assassinations in Libya in 2018”, 14^th Feb 2019, Arabic.

[vii] Human Rights Solidarity: “Libya: Crimes of Abductions and Assassinations January – June 2019”, 4^th August 2019, English.

[viii] Amnesty International: “Libya: ‘Vanished off the face of the earth’ – Abducted civilians in Libya“, 5^th August 2015.

[ix] Human Rights Solidarity has been monitoring and reporting on human rights practices in Libya since it was founded on 10^th December 1999 in Geneva Switzerland.

[x] Amnesty International: “Libya: Fears mount for abducted woman politician a month since she went missing”, 16^th August 2019.

[xi] United Nations Support Mission in Libya: “UNSMIL DEPLORES ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE OF ELECTED HOR MEMBER MS. SERGEWA, CALLING FOR HER IMMEDIATE RELEASE”, 18^th July 2019. European Union: “Joint statement calling for the immediate release of Libyan MP Siham Sergiwa”, 7^th August 2019. United Nations Support Mission in Libya: “UNSMIL STATEMENT ON THE CONTINUED ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE MEMBER SIHAM SERGAWA”, 7^th August 2019.

[xii] On Tuesday evening, 16^th July 2019, Ms. Siham Sergewa participated in a telephone call-in a program on “al- Hadath TV”, pro Haftar TV station. The following link is to the segment is of Ms. Sergewa’s comments on the war on Tripoli (link), published July 16, 2019, Arabic.

[xiii] The Libya Observer: “Haftar’s forces kidnap women in Derna, eastern Libya”, 27^th May 2019. The report states that 3 women form al-Bahbah family and three women from Bin Khayal (a woman and two daughters) were kidnapped. However, HRS has verified, from other sources, that indeed 3 female members of al-Bahbah family, and 2 women from Ben Khayal family; Ms. Najia al-Kawash, her daughter Saleema Ben Khayal and Saleema’s 4 children.

[xiv] The number of enforcedly disappeared women in Libya is very likely much higher than the six women mentioned in this report (Ms. Sergewa, 3 women from al-Bahbah and 2 women fromBen Khayal families), because of the chaotic situation of spread of militias, weakness of central government, and the media blackout, especially in regard to the ongoing violations in Derna. HR, based on official reports, there are about 200 women being held at Mitiga detention center in Tripoli. There are also women detained in Misrata, who were detained during “al-Bunyan al-Marsous” military operation to liberate Sirte from the ISIS (Daesh), and there are women detained in Benghazi, Gernada and ar-Rajma. No information is available on their identities, nor any information on whether or not their families have managed to contact them or hear from them.

[xv] Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: “International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance“.

[xvi] The preamble of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution (133/47): “Considering that enforced disappearance undermines the deepest values of any society committed to respect for the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms, and that the systematic practice of such acts is of the nature of a crime against humanity”.

[xvii] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, article 7 “Crimes against Humanity”, paragraph 1 (i).

[xviii] Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: “International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance“, 20^th December 2006.

[xix] Law No. (10) of 2013 “On the Criminalization of Torture, Forced Disappearance and Discrimination”, General National Congress, 14^th April 2013. Article (1) “Forced Disappearance”, Paragraph (1) “Whoever kidnaps or detains a human being or deprives the same of any of his personal freedoms, whether by force, threats or deceit, shall be punished with imprisonment.”

[xx] The Libyan Government, the Transitional Government of PM Abdel Raheem el-Kib, invited the UN Special Procedures, the Working Groups, Special Rapporteurs & Experts, to visit Libya. PM el-Kib made the open invitation in his speech at the 19^th regular session of the Human Rights Council, 27^th February to 23^rd March 2012.