The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has called upon Libyan authorities to surrender military commander Mahmoud al-Werfalli, who is accused of war crimes including mass executions and summary killings. Fatou Bensouda told the UN Security Council May 9 that Werfalli, along with Saif al-Islam Qaddafi and Al-Tuhamy Khaled (intelligence chief under the Qaddafi dictatorship), has yet to be handed over to the court. Despite the warrant out for his arrest, she said there are now "credible allegations" that he has committed further murders which may also be prosecuted as war crimes. "The Libyan people deserve answers," Bensouda said, adding that suspects cannot continue to be "sheltered."

A UN report (PDF) published April 10 detailed the conditions of thousands of people being held in Libya, describing them as human rights violations. According to the report, released by the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR), about 6,500 people are being held in official prisons, but thousands more are being detained in facilities controlled by armed groups, with varying degrees of loyalty to official authorities. One facility, which holds about 2,000 people, is run by a militia nominally loyal to the internationally recognized Government of National Accord, at Mitiga airbase in Tripoli. It is said to subject detainees to torture and unlawful killings, while denying adequate medical care. Additionally, the report asserts that people are arbitrarily detained because of their tribal or family background. The report further contends that authorities use armed groups to arrest suspected opponents.

The company operating Libya's biggest oilfield, Sharara, announced March 4 that it had been shut down after a citizen closed the pipeline that pumps the field's oil to al-Zawiya refinery. The field is run by a joint venture between Libya's National Oil Corporation with Spain's Repsol, French Total, Austria's OMV and Norway's Statoil. The individual, named as Hatem al-Hadi from Zintan, claimed the pipeline passes through his land and caused environmental pollution, the Mellitah Oil & Gas consortium said in a statement. The same person reportedly closed the pipeline last year and then reopened after the company pledged that his six hectares of land would be cleaned. The company has apparently failed to follow through on its promise. With this latest closure of the Sharara field, Libya's oil output dropped to a six-month low of 750,000 barrels per day, after reaching 1 million bpd last year.

UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons Cecilia Jimenes-Damar is calling on the government of Libya to protect hundreds of former residents of the town of Tawergha who are currently stranded in the desert. According to the UN, approximately 40,000 Tawarghans were forcefully evacuated in 2011 due to their perceived support for the country's former leader Moammar Qaddafi and their return has since been blocked by armed militia groups acting with the consent of the Libyan government. These militias continue to impede the Tawarghans' return despite an agreement being reached by representatives of the Tawarghans and the Misratan militia group that would have allowed individuals to begin returning home on Feb. 1.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Jan. 25 condemned the deadly mosque attack in eastern Benghazi two days earlier that left 34 people dead and 90 wounded, the majority civilians including three young children. According to a local hospital source, the car bombs exploded within 15 to 30 minutes of each other in front of the Baya'at al-Radwan Mosque in the Salmani district of Benghazi. The identity of the individuals or group that set the bombs is currently unknown. The first explosion occurred as worshipers were on their way out, after finishing their evening prayers known as "al-Isha," killing three and injuring six. The second explosion, which caused the majority of the casualties, followed the arrival of security forces and volunteer civilians who were helping to evacuate the wounded and dead.

In a victory for Berber activists, Algeria officially celebrated Yennayer, the new year holiday of the Amazigh people, for the first time. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said declaration of Yennayer as a national holiday was officially approved at a meeting of his Council of Ministers. Yennayer marks the first day of the agrarian calendar, celebrated by the Berber (Amazigh) people across North Africa on Jan. 12. This Yennayer marks the first day of the year 2968 in the Amazigh calendar, which starts counting from the enthronement of Shoshenq I in Egypt, initiating a Berber-ruled dynasty. The move to recognize Yennayer is part of a general effort by Algeria's government to permit greater expression of Amazigh culture in order to head off a separatist movement, marked by the recent proclamation of a Provisional Government of Kabylia in the country's Berber-majority eastern region.

European governments are knowingly "complicit" in the torture, abuse and exploitation of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants detained by the Libyan immigration authorities or criminal gangs in appalling conditions, said Amnesty International Dec. 12. In a new report, Libya's Dark Web of Collusion, Amnesty shows how European governments are actively supporting a system of abuse of refugees and migrants by the Libyan Coast Guard and detention authorities as well as smugglers operating in the country. Amnesty accused the EU of being unconcerned with the fate of thousands of vulnerable people while prioritizing the blocking of those risking their lives to reach European countries.

We've already noted the unseemly gloating over the chaos in Libya from many who opposed the NATO intervention of 2011. For them, the factional warfare and endemic lawlessness is only an opportunity for schadenfreude—taking glee in the misfortune of others. They were uninterested in loaning support to (or even recognizing the existence of) progressive elements during the Libyan revolution, and they continue to be thusly uninterested today. The Libyan human rights groups that are documenting war crimes by the profusion of militias and foreign powers, the women and ethnic minorities fighting for their rights—all safely invisible to stateside commentators of the left, right and center. For the schadenfreude crew, the Libyans are not actors in their own drama, but pawns to be exploited for propaganda against Obama and Hillary Clinton (tellingly hated by left and right alike). That many of these commentators consider themselves anti-imperialist is high irony, as they have completely internalized the imperial narcissism that makes the Libyans and their struggles and aspirations completely invisible, and turns them into objects for use in political contests within the imperial metropole. Perversely, this attitude even extends to the chilling emergence of a slave trade in abducted Black African migrants in Libya's remote desert south...