Jerba, Tunisia, 25-26 March 2021
On 25-26 March 2021, No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) and the Libyan Ministry of Justice, in collaboration with UNSMIL/Human Rights, Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Division, organised a two-day workshop to support Libyan authorities’ compliance to their obligations pursuant to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, with the participation of 27 Libyan government officials coming from diverse geographical areas and representing several ministries (including the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Education and the Presidential office).
The workshop was organised in the framework of a project launched by NPWJ in November 2020 and implemented with the financial support of the European Union, which aims at promoting a human rights approach within Libya’s legislative bodies and national authorities and supporting its efforts to fulfill its international obligations to Human Rights Treaties, including by submitting all its overdue reports to the relevant bodies and mechanisms and by implementing their recommendations.
The purpose of the workshop was to strengthen the capacity, knowledge and expertise of a number of Libyan high-level officials to prepare the State report to be submitted to the Committee against Torture (CAT) according to the UN guidelines and to reinforce the coordination mechanisms between relevant ministries and entities in the field of documentation, collecting relevant information and preparing answers to the list of issues prior to reporting (LoIPR) as shared with the government by the CAT.
The panel of human rights experts leading the workshop was composed by Abd al-Wahhab al-Hani, former member of the Committee against Torture; Fethi Jarray, Chairman of the Tunisian National Instance for the Prevention of Torture and former Minister of Education; Ibrahium Salama, Chief of Treaty Bodies Branch at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Bassam Aicha, Human rights expert and Head of training Section at NPWJ, and Frej Fenniche, former senior human rights officer at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and current MENA Regional Director of No Peace Without Justice.
The training and discussion focused on the provisions of the Convention against Torture, the working procedures of the Committee against Torture (CAT) and the implementing obligations binding State parties. Participants were provided with the necessary skills and techniques to write the periodic reports to be submitted to the CAT according to the “simplified reporting procedure”, based on the list of issues prior to reporting. The workshop provided an opportunity for the Libyan officials to exchange views with experts on sensitive issues like the definition of torture, harmonization of the national law, death penalty, corporal punishment, Sharia law, impunity and imprescriptibility of the crime of torture. Participants also benefited from an informal interactive dialogue with Mr. Mohamed Aujjar, Chairperson of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya (FFM) on the historical background of the FFM, its mandate and its procedures.
– For further information please contact Frej Fenniche, MENA Regional Representative of No Peace Without Justice (on ffenniche@npwj.org).
– Check also the Arabic FB page of NPWJ’s Libya Team
