Libya: Older Sufi Sheikh Forcibly Disappeared For A Year
According to information gathered by Amnesty International, Sheikh Al-Biju has been subjected to multiple threats by Salafi groups, including a failed assassination attempt in 2013, and the closure of his centre for teaching the Quran, located in the Gardens area in Benghazi in 2016, forcing him to teach from home. Amnesty International learned from informed sources that he was initially held by the Security Directorates’ Support Body. The group, which according to information obtained by Amnesty International espouses a Salafi Madkhali ideology, is also holding several other arrested Sufi clerics and activists. The Security Directorates’ Support Body frequently publishes videos on its social media channels depicting arrests for “witchcraft and sorcery”. According to information received unofficially, Sheikh Al-Biju was subsequently transferred to Gernada prison.
In November 2024, The Supreme Council for Islamic Sufism in Libya issued a statement ccondemning the ongoing persecution of Sufi sheikhs and their followers in Libya, raising the alarm over the arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, deaths in custody, enforced disappearance and use of forced “confessions” to accuse several sheikhs in Benghazi of “witchcraft”. It also pointed to the efforts by those espousing the Salafi Madkhali ideology to discredit and undermine the Sufi orders since the fall of Mu’ammar Gaddafi’s rule in 2011. On 9 January 2024, Libya’s parliament, allied to the LAAF, approved a new law criminalizing “witchcraft and sorcery”, with penalties ranging from imprisonment for up to fourteen years to the death penalty.
Amnesty International has long documented how armed groups allied to LAAF including the Internal Security Agency (ISA)- Benghazi and Tariq Ben Zeyad subjected actual or perceived critics and opponents of the LAAF to arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and torture and other ill-treatment. Since January 2024, heavily armed ISA agents have arrested without a warrant dozens of people, including women and men in their 70s, from their homes, streets or other public places in areas of eastern and southern Libya under LAAF control. Those arrested were then transferred to ISA-controlled facilities, where they remained arbitrarily detained for months without being allowed to contact their families or lawyers, and none were brought before civilian judicial authorities, allowed to challenge the legality of their detention, or were formally charged with any offences.
On 16 January 2025, the Military Attorney General under the LAAF announced the establishment of an investigative committee to investigate reports of torture and other ill-treatment in Gernada prison, after videos showing detainees being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings and flogging, in Gernada appeared online. According to information shared by the Libyan human rights organization Libyan Crimes Watch (LCW) with Amnesty International, at least five former detainees confirmed to LCW that the videos depict the so-called “administration wing” on the first floor of the prison, near the office of the prison director, and that some of the guards seen abusing the prisoners are donning uniforms worn by the military police of the LAAF. Amnesty International reiterates its calls on the Libyan authorities to conduct effective, impartial, independent, thorough and prompt investigations into allegations of torture and other ill-treatment in Gernada prison by civilian judicial bodies, with the view of bringing those responsible to account in fair trials, and removing those reasonably suspected of committing violations from positions in which they can repeat similar violations or interfere with investigations, pending the outcome of criminal investigations and prosecutions. Crimes under international law and human rights violations by members of the armed forces should not be under the jurisdiction of military courts. Since the announcement on the launch of investigations on 16 January, no further details about the progress or findings of investigations have been shared publicly.
Amnesty International has consistently documented torture and other ill-treatment in prisons and detention facilities under LAAF’s control, including the “Internal Security Agency” and the “military” wings of Gernada prison. The most commonly reported methods of torture include beatings with various objects including water pipes (locally known as ‘tubu PPR’), flogging, suspension in contorted positions, threats with rape and other harm. Families of those detained in Gernada have also long complained of the absence of visits, sometimes for years, and denial of communication, with their loved ones. Libya is currently divided between two entities competing for legitimacy, governance and territorial control. The Government of National Unity (GNU) controls Tripoli and most of western Libya, while the LAAF, a powerful armed group, is in de facto control of eastern and southern Libya.