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Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2005 - Libya

Arbitrary detention and judicial harassment of Mr. Fathi El-Jahmi²⁷

On 4 April 2004, unidentified members of a security group had abducted Mr. Fathi El-Jahmi, an engineer and human rights defender.

Since his arrest, Mr. El-Jahmi has been denied access to his lawyer and no information was thus made available about his detention conditions. He reportedly refused to accept an agreement providing for his release if he committed himself to give up his freedom of expression.

By the end of 2005, Mr. El-Jahmi had been allegedly accused of "defaming the Head of State" and was apparently still arbitrarily detained in Benghazi, without a court of competent jurisdiction (the People's Court was abolished on 12 January 2005) or a date for the hearing having been selected.

[Refworld note: This report as posted on the FIDH website (www.fidh.org) was in pdf format with country chapters run together by region. Footnote numbers have been retained here, so do not necessarily begin at 1.]

27. See Annual Report 2004.

Topics: Human rights activists,