Amnesty: Libya Rights Reform Stalling, Migrants in Fear
BBC: African migrants in Libya are "living in constant fear", a report by UK-based Amnesty International says.

The campaign group said the North African country's record on human rights falls well short of efforts to repair its image in the world.

It documents indefinite detentions, flogging for adultery, the continued disappearance of dissidents, and the security forces' immunity from justice.

The report is partially based on a week-long visit to Libya in May 2009.

It was the first trip of its kind in five years, facilitated by the Gaddafi Foundation - run by one of the Libyan leader's sons, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

Analysts say he is keen to to liberalise the country, once a pariah state accused of promoting terrorism to threaten Western interests but now seen as a vital source of oil and gas resources and investment opportunities.

"If Libya is to have any international credibility, the authorities must ensure that no-one is above the law and that everyone, including the most vulnerable and marginalised, is protected by the law," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa deputy director said in a statement.

"The repression of dissent must end," she said.

"Libya's international partners cannot ignore Libya's dire human rights record at the expense of their national interests." >>> | Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Government Faces New Pressure Over IRA Victims and British Plane Downed in 1971
THE GUARDIAN: Ministers accused of not holding Tripoli to account / Calls for payouts over Ulster terrorism rejected

Britain faced fresh pressure over Libya yesterday when the government was accused of failing to challenge Tripoli over the forcing down of a British aircraft in 1971 and the son of the Libyan leader rejected paying compensation to victims of IRA terrorism.

As No 10 struggled to present a united front on Libya – with the schools secretary, Ed Balls, declaring that "none of us wanted" to see the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing – ministers were criticised for failing to act on pleas to investigate an earlier plane incident.

Ministers have faced calls since 2004, the year the then prime minister, Tony Blair, met the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, outside Tripoli, to challenge Libya over the forcing down of a BOAC VC10 over Benghazi in July 1971.

The plane was flying from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum to London carrying 105 people, including Colonel Babakr al-Nur, the leader of a failed coup, and his assistant, Major Farouk Hamadalla. Both men were sent back to Sudan, where they were executed.

Hamadalla's daughter, Amani, has tried to raise the matter with the Foreign Office (FCO), but she has been met with "obfuscation after obfuscation", according to her MP, the Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather.

In an echo of the government's initial refusal to put pressure on Tripoli to pay compensation to victims of IRA terrorism, the Foreign Office brushed off Hamadalla in 2004.

Lady Symons, an FCO minister, told her to contact the Libyans herself. "It is impossible for us to raise every case, but, if a suitable opportunity presents itself, we are sometimes able to discuss individuals," Symons wrote. When Teather protested, the FCO raised the case with the Libyans and issued Tripoli with a formal "note verbale" in 2005 recording this. >>> Nicholas Watt and Henry McDonald | Monday, September 07, 2009