Watchdog Hails Libya's Human Rights Progress

Libya won praise yesterday for taking "important steps" to improve human rights but was warned it will have to do more to meet international standards.

Despite improvements, including the release of 14 political prisoners, Libya continues to hold other political prisoners, conducts unfair trials and restricts free speech, Human Rights Watch said.

Monitors from the New York-based body were allowed to visit Libya for the first time last year, a move it welcomed as a step towards greater transparency.

Libyan authorities provided access to top officials as well as police stations, an immigrant detention centre and five prisons, where 32 prisoners were interviewed in private, the report said. But government guides escorted its researchers at all other times and controlled unauthorised contact with Libyans and foreigners in the country, it added.

The government was expecting Human Rights Watch to be critical and its announcement of the release of 14 prisoners, two days before the report, seems to have been calculated to soften its impact.

The report said Libya's laws enshrined many basic rights but that legislation restricting free speech was at odds with international norms. The organisation also cited the continued imprisonment of "86 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a political group that eschews violence".

Western countries have been eager to re-establish relations with Libya after a period of isolation triggered by the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, but Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth urged them to press Libya more. "Libya's cooperation in fighting terrorism should not mean carte blanche to commit abuse."