Defender Centre has commenced a social media solidarity campaign that highlights the crackdown on civil society organisations (CSO) in Libya.
Development Diaries reports that the human rights organisation, in a tweet, called on states and the international community to take urgent action to protect free association in Libya by supporting the proposed NGO draft law.
It noted that Libyan human rights organisations have been vital in monitoring and documenting human rights violations in the country since 2011.
There has been a widespread clampdown on the country’s civic space which has recently escalated.
This has been exacerbated by a culture of impunity undermining efforts to ensure accountability for human rights abuses committed against civil society actors.
‘There can never be free and democratic #elections in Libya without an independent civil society, which plays an important role in election monitoring’, the tweet read in part.
In a 2022 report, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights noted a deepening crackdown on civil society in Libya, where arbitrary arrests and a campaign of social media vilification were having a seriously chilling effect on human rights defenders, humanitarian workers, and other civil society actors.
It is understood that state-affiliated armed groups arbitrarily detained human rights defenders and civil society actors, under the pretence of protecting ‘Libyan and Islamic values’, and subjected them to torture, verbal harassment and intimidation.
Freedom House ranked the country as ‘not free’ in its Freedom in the World 2023 study of political rights and civil liberties, with the Maghreb nation earning ten points out of a potential 100.
Development Diaries calls on the Libyan authorities to stop the hostile campaign against Libyans exercising and defending their human rights.
Source: Defender Centre
Photo source: AFP
