Guess no one saw this coming eh?
Armed militias in Libya are committing human rights abuses with impunity, threatening to destabilize the country and hindering its efforts to rebuild, Amnesty International said Thursday.
Militias have tortured detainees, targeted migrants and displaced entire communities in revenge attacks, according to a report the organization released a year after the start of popular uprisings that eventually ended Moammar Gadhafi’s 42-year rule.
“Hundreds of armed militias, widely hailed in Libya as heroes for their role in toppling the former regime, are largely out of control,” the report says.
Detainees at 10 facilities used by militia in central and western Libya told representatives from Amnesty International this year that they had been tortured or abused. Several detainees said they confessed to crimes they had not committed in order to stop the torture, Amnesty International said.At least 12 detainees held by militias have died after being tortured since September, the human rights organization said, adding that authorities have not effectively investigated the torture allegations.
Thank you Arab Spring.
Meet the new boss…same as the old boss:
A terrified Libyan man is beaten and tortured with electric shocks by youths who appear to be former revolutionary fighters.
The images, taken from a video handed to The Mail on Sunday in a Tripoli refugee camp, will be seen as fresh evidence that those who deposed Colonel Gaddafi with the help of the West are adopting methods as brutal as the dead tyrant’s.
The film shows three men tying up the blood-spattered man before whipping him repeatedly with cables, touching him on his skin with electric wires and taunting him as he pleads for mercy.
The man being whipped with cables on the video was Saleh Barhoun Gersh, who had run a general store in Towerga – which was loyal to Gaddafi during the conflict until the town was ransacked by fighters from nearby Misrata. When the rebels arrived, Mr Gersh was so frightened he wore women’s clothes to disguise himself
The film shows three men tying up the blood-spattered man before whipping him repeatedly with cables, touching him on his skin with electric wires and taunting him as he pleads for mercy
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPX888nNzL4[/youtube]
It’s a new chapter all right…a new chapter in Islamic fanaticism. A new chapter in torture and violence. A new chapter in crazy.
Reality is that everyone was happy that Gaddafi was gone, but not everyone had their head in the sand, ignoring the obvious. He was being replaced by thousands of Gaddafi’s.
Mata wrote last October:
But while westerners set aside their normal respect for rule of law and justice, gleefully rejoicing in a particularly bloody end, the arguments some of us have been making about this “new and improved” Libya looking suspiciously like (if not worse) than the old Libya, is gaining traction as more proof surfaces supporting the the Libyan rebels committed war atrocities.
This goes far beyond just Gaddafi, as mass graves with hundreds of bodes are excavated… the count approx 300 in one alone at this writing.. many with their hands bound behind their backs, executed.
Ali Tarhouni of the National Transitional Council excuses the rebels as young boys who had witnessed murders of family and friends, and praised their “self control”. Hey.. you can’t make this stuff up.
And in the end we helped bring down one dictator and helped prop up a radical Islamic regime.
See author page