Hawary showed IPS testimonies from families whose loved ones have been beaten to death in the custody of the many militias that continue to control vast swathes of Libya.
“At least 20 people have been beaten to death in militia custody since the revolution, and this is a conservative figure. The real figure is probably far higher,” says Hawary, pointing to photos of bloodied bodies accompanying the testimonies.
Related IPS Articles
Libyan Youth Yearn for Normalcy
Hawary is no fan of the Gaddafi regime. The former Salafist and political oponent of Gaddafi was imprisoned numerous times as a poitical dissident by Gaddafi’s secret police.
Hawary emerged from his periods of incarceration beaten and bloodied, but not broken. Far worse happened to his Islamist friends under the Gaddafi regime which was fiercely opposed to Islamic fundamentalism.
Hawary eventually escaped to Egypt where he remained until Libya’s February 17 revolution in 2011 made it safe for him and other Islamists to return.
Revenge attacks, killings and abductions against former Gaddafi supporters and against black men, who the rebels perceive as having worked as mercenaries for Gaddafi during the war, continue well after the “liberation” of the country.
Several months ago Muhammad Dossah, 28, was abducted by armed militia men at a checkpoint in the northern city Misrata as he was driving his employer Forrestor Oil Company’s car from the city Ras al Amoud to capital Tripoli.
“I don’t know if he is dead or alive. We haven’t heard from him since he disappeared from the militia checkpoint and the police investigating his disappearance say the trail has gone cold,” his brother Hussam Dossah, 25, tells IPS.