@bnnNEWSLIVEWAR IN LIBYA
Six researchers conducted a fact-finding mission between February and May and again in late August, interviewing victims of abuse and their families and documenting evidence of torture and the bombardment of civilian populations.
Their report reveals shocking evidence of human rights abuse by the Gaddafi regime but also of abuse by anti-Gaddafi forces and it calls on the new authorities in Libya to move immediately to deal with those responsible and to introduce laws to safeguard human rights in the new Libya.
Claudio Cordone is a senior director of Amnesty International who coordinated the research for today's report.
He spoke to me this morning from Tripoli.
Claudio Cordone, what affected you most as you were putting this report together?
CLAUDIO CORDONE: Well obviously although we expect some of the nasty things that happen in a war, what to see the easiness with which for example the Gaddafi forces murder prisoners as they were leaving their detention centres.
But also to see how in particular vulnerable people such as the nationals from sub-Saharan African countries who were assumed to be mercenaries were targeted as well as some black Libyans suspected automatically of being on the side of the Gaddafi and therefore, you know, taken away, beaten up and sometimes killed.
ELEANOR HALL: Gaddafi promised from the start to hunt his opponents down door to door. How much evidence did you find of that?
CLAUDIO CORDONE: Well clearly what they did to the prisoners that they had was appalling. You know, we documented just before the fall of Tripoli in two military camps - in one they said to the prisoners, you can go out, as they were trying to do that they start shooting them, throwing them grenades and then burn them.
They started going into isolation cells, they shot five people before the guards decided to leave and the others could come out. So, you know, that kind of behaviour is unfortunately consistent with how Gaddafi has dealt with his opponents and for all we know may still do some of those things in the remaining days while his forces are still in control of parts of the country.
ELEANOR HALL: Well there were reports emerging as the battle continued of Gaddafi also using major artillery like helicopter gunships on civilian populations. Were you shocked by the level of government violence against civilians, indiscriminate violence that you documented?
CLAUDIO CORDONE: Yeah well they've used Grad missiles, they used cluster weapons, you know it wasn't even indiscriminate. We can say those were direct attacks aimed deliberately at attacking civilians. Particularly in the town of Misurata, the level of violence and disruption was particularly significant.
ELEANOR HALL: Were you surprised also at the level of human rights abuse on the anti-Gaddafi side?
CLAUDIO CORDONE: It's not so much a matter of being surprised as you always hope that those who are fighting for a better Libya behave differently.
Unfortunately we have been documenting abuses on the part of the forces opposed to Gaddafi, particularly in the first few days where we had some of the captured Gaddafi soldiers being lynched, some black Africans hanged.
Even now we are very concerned about the situation in the detention centres that are being run by the various military brigades with little in fact authority from the National Transitional Council. And that's one of the things that we hope the council can establish soon, to regain control of the detention centre to stop some of the treatment that we know is going on in there.
ELEANOR HALL: Well it is perhaps understandable that there would be some settling of scores. What does the new government of Libya need to do to instil respect for human rights, how big a challenge do you think it is in a country that has had a dictatorship for four decades?
