TRIPOLI, 23 May 2005 — The Libyan government said yesterday it was suing Amnesty International for ignoring Tripoli’s demands to correct a report that criticized Libya’s human rights record. London-based rights advocacy group Amnesty published the report on human rights abuses in Libya as leader Muammar Qaddafi visited the European Union headquarters in Brussels last year.
It was his first trip since 1989 and was aimed at paving the way for better relations with the West after he promised to scrap Libya’s programs of prohibited weapons. The Amnesty report said Libya continued to jail, torture and execute political prisoners and urged Qaddafi to make good on his promises to establish a “normal criminal law procedure”.
“Libya decided to lodge a complaint against Amnesty International for issuing a report that contained untrue and inaccurate facts aimed at tarnishing Libya’s image,” the government said in a statement.
“Amnesty had deliberately released the report to coincide with Col. Qaddafi’s visit to the European Union’s headquarters last year,” it said.
“Libya is suing Amnesty after Libyan authorities asked it to correct errors and mistakes in the report and apologize for the timing of it, but its answers were vague, ambiguous and unjustified,” it added.
A spokeswoman for Amnesty International said it could not comment until it saw the details of Libya’s complaint. The Libyan government did not give details on when or where it had filed the suit.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria’s president will visit Tripoli just days before a Libyan court rules on the appeal of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for infecting children with HIV, the presidency said yesterday.
“President (Georgi Parvanov) will start a two-day visit to Tripoli on May 27, following an invitation by Qaddafi,” said spokeswoman for the presidency Boika Bashlieva.
