Libyan civil society organizations are fighting against all odds to support victims of human rights violations. In doing so, they themselves risk violence and do their work despite the visible and invisible pain they feel and the innumerable obstacles placed in front of them. Renewed global attention on the Libyan conflict and two new draft laws to protect activists and others may help.
“I have never been anywhere where hope and apprehension were at such a pitch. Anything seemed possible, and nearly every individual I met spoke of his optimism and foreboding in the same breath.” These are words Pulitzer Prize winner Hisham Matar used to describe the 2011-2012 Libyan revolution when he was finally able to return to the country after a long period of exile. Sadly, 11 years after the capture and death of Moammar Gaddafi, Libya is still on the brink of collapse. Its people continue to live each day in limbo, caught between hope for justice and fear of unending violence and impunity for heinous crimes.
In many ways, present-day Libya is divided between the UN-backed Government of National Unity in the West, based in Tripoli, and the House of Representatives with the self-proclaimed authority of Khalifa Haftar in the East, based in Benghazi. In addition, countless competing and heavily armed militias are roaming the country, fighting on behalf of one or the other side, or sometimes their own illegal businesses.
Amid the chaos and fighting, a cadre of human rights defenders are hard at work, determined to build a better and more peaceful future for Libya despite constant risks of harassment, violence, and even death. Even though Libya’s 2011 Constitutional Declaration guarantees the freedom to form political parties and associations, civil society organizations (CSOs) face enormous hurdles because a 2001 law is still in place that gives government authorities and security services the right to control them.
Libyan Civil Society from 2011 to Today
Libya has never been an easy place for activists and human rights defenders. “There were no CSOs in Libya before 2011 because Gaddafi oppressed them and never allowed them to operate,” explained Turkia Alwaeer, a sociologist and founder of Atwar Organization for Research and Community Development, a CSO that helps to empower youth and women through research and training. “After the regime was toppled, hundreds of CSOs were created. They started as charities. Growing in number up to 5,000, they began specializing and focusing on different topics. Unfortunately, many of them were not mature enough when the so-called Libyan National Army led by General Khalifa Haftar attacked the capital Tripoli in April 2019. Several international organizations left the country, and some of the Libyan ones, often small and locally rooted, took a side, falling into partisanship.” Some groups forgot their mission to protect all Libyans—men and women of all ethnic groups—as well as migrants.
The obstacles that civil society confronts are not only related to government bureaucracy. State-affiliated armed groups subject activists and members of civil society to various forms of repression. Exposing corruption and human rights violations may lead to arbitrary detention, torture, or extrajudicial killing.
For those CSOs that are still independent and operating in the country, recent draconian regulations have added new challenges. Every activity undertaken by CSO representatives and activists must be approved, even something as small as attending a conference or an event. CSOs must meet burdensome annual registration requirements, including sharing information about the types of programs they intend to run, where they get their funding, and which groups of victims they serve and how. Collaboration with international organizations and even the UN Support Mission in Libya requires advance approval. Government interference, delayed approvals, and fundraising prohibitions are gravely impeding the work of CSOs.
The obstacles that civil society confronts are not only related to government bureaucracy. State-affiliated armed groups subject activists and members of civil society to various forms of repression. Exposing corruption and human rights violations may lead to arbitrary detention, torture, or extrajudicial killing. According to a report published in June 2022, since December 2021 security services have arbitrarily detained 12 young human rights defenders. One of them was eventually released, but he is still under investigation and has been banned from traveling. Some of these young activists had just arrived at the airport to travel to a training when they were detained, while others were arrested for having a conversation on human rights on the Clubhouse social media application. Libya’s security services posted one activist’s extorted “confession” on their Facebook and Twitter pages. The report described a climate of fear and panic among human rights defenders across the country, and some organizations have suspended or reduced their activities out of fear of harassment from security forces and legal prosecution.
“The only major difference between now and before 2011 is that under the Gaddafi regime, we could determine the origin of the human rights violation, and where it was coming from,” said Libyan activist Ahmed. His name was changed for this story to ensure his and his family’s safety. “The situation now is totally different; we have all kinds of violations, and they are coming from multiple sources. As human rights defenders, we have difficulties accessing the victims, the witnesses, the documentation, and it's extremely hard to provide assistance and psychological support.”
Activists need support, too. The effort to document atrocities in Tarhuna, a town 70 km southeast of Tripoli, is illustrative of the types of challenges human rights defenders encounter. Between 2015 and 2020, the al-Kaniyat militia ruled Tarhuna through a campaign of terror. According to the UN-backed Independent Fact-finding Mission on Libya, Libyan authorities with international assistance have found four mass grave sites and several individual graves in Tarhuna, with at a total of 247 bodies including those of children and women. (Of them, 138 were eventually identified.) All the recovered bodies had gunshot wounds to either the back of the head or chest, and over 90 percent of them were bound by the hands and blindfolded. The fact-finding mission also documented cases of torture before death.
Documenting such atrocities is already traumatic, but those who did then faced threats and ostracization. “I helped reach out to 180 victims of human rights violations in Tarhuna, and from time to time, I conduct interviews with them,” said Samir, a human rights defender from the town and a key contributor to the fact-finding mission. He asked that his real name not be used because relatives of the people he interviewed often threaten him and his colleagues. “Libyan society is a tribal society,” he explains. “Families feel the obligation of reprisal or revenge even more strongly if violent acts are perpetrated with impunity, as keeps happening in Libya. I try to raise public awareness about the necessity to establish the rule of law and not take justice into individual hands. But I end up being considered a traitor by my own community.”
Alwaeer confirms that civil society representatives are often under attack and face digital bullying, blackmail, and even enforced disappearances. Women in the sector need to be particularly careful. “We are in a conservative society and any women’s liberation initiative is characterized as ‘heresy.’ Women who don’t wear a veil are targeted. To do my work, I avoid mentioning gender equality and call it social justice,” she said.
Without any legal protections, activists cannot rely on the government’s help. In fact, it is quite the opposite. In March 2022, 57 Libyan organizations and prominent personalities reacted with a statement that read, in part: “This is a very dangerous matter in a societal context that has experienced the use of ‘takfir’ [accusing a fellow Muslim of apostasy] and bloodshed in the name of religion.”
'Inability to Resist Hope'
Despite the open hostility and violence toward civil society, it is, in the words of Hisham Matar, an “inability to resist hope” that keeps activists going. And, there is some hope to be found, for example, in the growing number of networks, alliances, and coalitions that CSOs have created in recent months. CSOs from across the country have come together, putting aside divergent political views, to advocate for a new law that would recognize, protect, and support CSOs. The bill, known as the Associations Law, was referred to the House of Representatives in October 2021. The draft law recommends the creation of an independent “Commission for Support and Care of Civil Society Affairs.” Though financially supported through the government’s budget, it would follow independent financial disclosure protocols, separate from any executive authority.
In such a divided society, peace never comes as quickly as war. Instead, it requires the slow, delicate weaving of a thousand thin threads to reconnect people in a shared vision. Transitional justice is in part this weaving together.
There is also a proposal for a draft law on Combating Violence Against Women. Fatima Shineeb, a human right lawyer from Benghazi, has been working over the last decade to improve the incredibly dire situation for women in the country. “During Gaddafi’s regime, we were able to achieve some progress. After the 2011 revolution, we took many steps back. The president of the National Transitional Council, Mustapha Abdul Jalil, authorized unrestricted polygamy,” she said, stressing the need for the proposed law. “Because of recurrent conflicts and displacement, early marriage is spreading again among girls as young as 12 years, since the only legal requirement is the father’s approval after obtaining a court permission. We have girls who die of early pregnancies in a body that is not mature enough to give birth,” she continued. “Impunity in family violence is everywhere. Recently, we had seven women killed in a month, exactly where they should be safest: at home.”
Despite this worsening reality, Shineeb has a clear vision for the future of Libya, but it is only achievable if peaceful elections are held, which will require external support. “The international community needs to step up and play a decisive role in supporting the election process. They need to make a call to disarm the militia and give us a period to reestablish the rule of law,” she explains.
Hope in Justice: Supporting a Libyan-led Process
Transitional justice offers another source of glimmering hope. Divisions run deep in Libya, with each different community still feeling that its losses are the most significant; its rights the most violated; and its dignity the most affronted. Libya is just one example of how easy it can be for conflict to break out, but how difficult it is to find peace and deliver justice. In such a divided society, peace never comes as quickly as war. Instead, it requires the slow, delicate weaving of a thousand thin threads to reconnect people in a shared vision. Transitional justice is in part this weaving together. It aims to restore the rule of law and respect for human rights; uncover the truth about the past and the causes and consequences of conflict; hold perpetrators to account; acknowledge and redress victims; and ultimately, reform the laws and institutions that allowed injustice, violence, and impunity to prevail in the first place. While some support from the international community will be integral to putting Libyans on this path, Libyan civil society is ultimately the guide and must accompany Libyans every step of the way.
“We cannot conceive of a transitional justice process without the participation of civil society,” stresses Reem El Gantri, head of ICTJ’s Libya Program. “Civil society plays an important role in initiating these processes, designing the tools, and supporting and monitoring their implementation, in addition to making sure these processes will lead to structural reforms through advocacy initiatives.” ICTJ works across society and borders to challenge the causes and address the consequences of massive human rights violations. In Libya, it provides vital training and capacity building to activists and members of civil society.
"I cannot see any stability in Libya unless we abide by transitional justice, from truth seeking to holding perpetrators of human rights violations accountable, to reparations for the victims, to institutional reforms."
Most activists agree that victims, affected communities, and members of civil society must be the primary drivers of processes designed to uncover the truth, deliver justice, provide redress, and establish lasting peace in Libya. “It is vital for me to sit at the table and represent my people’s pain,” explained Musa Wantiti, a computer science teacher and peace activist from Ghadamès, a Berber town in northwestern Libya. “In the beginning, my community was invisible, but if we want to start anew, we need every Libyan to know what happened, what some Arabs and Tuareg [the ethnic Berber group that inhabits southern Libya] did to each other in our city, why people were displaced.”
Samir agrees. "I cannot see any stability in Libya unless we abide by transitional justice, from truth seeking to holding perpetrators of human rights violations accountable, to reparations for the victims, to institutional reforms. Of course, this would mean the end of the armed militia and that’s why they are fighting against us,” he explained.
"We should stop basing our future on UN arrangements or involving the international community in the design of the solution, because they are part of the problem,” said Ahmed. “Libya is in urgent need of genuine national dialogue that involves anyone willing to reach a political settlement. It has to be a participatory process, with government, victims, institutions, and CSOs.”
These diverse voices make clear that an effective transitional justice process in Libya cannot be decided by multilateral or international organizations. Effective mechanisms for truth, justice, reparation, and reform vary from place to place, since each society is unique. But if there is one consistent ingredient in all successful recipes, it is ownership of the process by the country and its people. Libyan civil society has a massive role to play in galvanizing popular support for and designing meaningful transitional justice policies and programs, but it needs political and legal support to meet this challenge. Hope can keep them going, but laws and external support for their work and their safety can keep them alive.
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PHOTO: A woman holds a picture of the prominent Libyan human rights activist Salwa Bugaighis, who was killed by gunmen, at a demonstration against her murder in Benghazi on June 27, 2014. Bugaighis helped organize the first protests against Muammar Gaddafi when the uprising started in Benghazi. (Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters)
