Libya security under threat: Envoy

that they were continuing to hold detainees from the country’s civil war in secret detention centres and subjecting them to torture.
Martin said Libya’s transitional government is still struggling to enforce its authority in the country, and stressed that it has so far failed to contain the violence unleashed by the revolutionary brigades that helped oust the government of Col Muammar Gaddafi last year.
“The former regime may have been toppled, but the harsh reality is that the Libyan people continue to have to live with its deep-rooted legacy,” Martin said. He added that the legacy remains “weak, at times absent, state institutions, coupled with the long absence of political parties and civil society organisations, which render the country’s transition more difficult”.
Meanwhile, several people have died after being tortured by militias in Libyan detention centres, humanitarian group Amnesty International has said.
It claimed to have seen patients in Tripoli, Misrata and Gheryan with open wounds to their head, limbs and back.
Charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has suspended operations in Misrata after treating 115 patients with torture-related wounds.
The UN says it is concerned about the conditions in which patients are held.
“The torture is being carried out by officially recognised military and security entities as well as by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework,” a spokesman for London-based Amnesty said.
Medecins Sans Frontieres said it was being “exploited” as some patients were being brought to them between interrogation sessions.
“Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions,” said general director Christopher Stokes.
More than 8 500 detainees, most of them accused of being Gaddafi loyalists, are being held by militia groups in about 60 centres, according to UN human rights chief Navi Pillay. – RTTNews-bbc.co.uk