موقع تيبستي

أخبار الجزيرة

أخبار البي بي سي

الأخبــــــــــــار

بريد تيبستـي

للاتصـال بنـا

اخبر صديقــك

أرشيــــــف

Allibyah@yahoo.com

Tel: 004176 4691539

24 February 2005

Dear Mr. Toope

A new case of enforced disappearance: Mr. Rajab Barka

The Libyan League for Human Rights has the honour to inform you of a new case of enforced disappearance in Libya. It concerns this time Mr Rajab Barka, a 40 years old Libyan citizen from Tripoli, living and working in Hanover, Germany. Mr. Barka travelled to Tripoli to visit his parents on 8 November 2004 and was in contact, by phone, with his wife in Hanover until 14 November 2004 when she received his last call.

Since that date, Mrs. Barka has been living in uncertainty as she has no idea on what happened to her husband. She talked, by phone, to his brother (brother-in-law) who was not able to explain to her the situation of his missing brother. It is suspected that he is under security surveillance. He evaded the entire issue while trying to make his sister-in-law understands that he cannot talk freely, for security reasons, about the fate of his brother. She tried to travel to Tripoli but her request for visa was turned down by the Libyan consulate in Bonn. Thereafter she travelled to Tunis hoping to meet her brother-in- law, but he failed to show up as he may have been barred from travelling abroad. Mrs. Barka continued her search for her husband by approaching the Libyan Embassy in Berlin, but got no news and no visa.

This is the situation of Mr. Rajab Barka who may have returned to Libya following calls the Libyan Government made lately, with an implied general pardon, to urge the Libyan exiles to return home and to start a new page. The Government's conciliatory disposition was such that President Qaddhafi, in an unprecedented move, recognized in public that most Libyan exiles, like Mr. Barka left Libya because "they were victims of gross human rights violations that, in many cases, threatened their life". He "justified", nevertheless, those violations as being inherent to any "revolution" by referring to the "régime de la terreur" which evolved between 1792 and 1794, during the early years of the French Revolution, wherein terror-violence was used intentionally and systematically by the French Revolutionary Government, under Robespierre, as an instrument of political repression and social control. Let's us hope that the calls of the Libyan Government are not a mere trap for the returnees like Mr. Barka and that his case will be resolved, shortly, by his return to his family in Hanover, Germany.

Mr. Stephen J. Toope

Working Group On Enforced or

Involuntary Disappearances

Palais des Nations,

1211 Geneva 10

These are the details of the case and we urge you and your colleagues, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment and the Chairperson of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, to initiate action to shed light on this case and hopefully to return Mr. Barka to his anxious family. Please do not hesitate to call on the LLHR in case additional information is required.

Yours sincerely,

Sliman Bouchuiguir (Ph-D)

Secretary General

CC:

Ms. Louise Harbour

High Commissioner for Human Rights

Palais des Nations

1211 Geneva 10

MS. Leila Zerrougui

Chairperson; Working Group

On Arbitrary Detention

Palais des Nations