Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Libyan House of Representatives to repeal a 2022 Anti-Cybercrime Law that restricts freedom of speech in Libya.

Development Diaries reports that the rights organisation also called on the authorities in eastern Libya to immediately release anyone they are holding under this law for peaceful expression.

The law has been criticised by four United Nations experts as infringing the rights of free expression, privacy, and association, calling for it to be revoked.

HRW’s Associate Middle East and North Africa Director, Hanan Salah, said, ‘Libyans should have the right to free expression whether online or offline. It is not OK to trample on that right in the name of fighting cybercrime’.

The organisation believes that the key shortcomings of the law include vague and overbroad definitions that could invite prosecution for peaceful expression and punishment with prison terms of up to 15 years and stiff fines.

An example given is that the law stipulates that the use of the internet and other new technologies is lawful only if ‘public order and morality’ are respected.

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has also described the law, which was adopted by the House of Representatives on 27 September, 2022, as merely the latest of many repressive measures adopted by the authorities.

Freedom House ranked Libya 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 respect the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which it ratified in 1970, and revoke the repressive cybercrime law.

Source: HRW

Photo source: Cüneyt Türksen