OMCT wraps up 5-part series of trainings for Libyan lawyers

ForImmediate Release

26 May 2014

TUNIS – Today,the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) brings to a close its series offive trainings for the Libyan legal community. This series, held over the pasttwo years, was designed to build the capacity of lawyers, judges, prosecutors,jurists, and activists to document cases of torture and ill-treatment in Libya.The final workshop, held this weekend in Tunisia amid the uncertain securitysituation in Libya, has been designed to ensure the sustainability of civilsociety organizations that are fighting to end the systemic practice of torturein Libya.

The first workshop, held in Tripoli in June 2012, sought tosensitize legal professionals to the issue of torture and encourage them toaccept and endorse international anti-torture standards. The second workshop,held in Tripoli in September 2012, began to equip lawyers with practical toolsto document cases of torture, arbitrary detention, forced disappearance, andother grave crimes. The third workshop, held in Tunis in October 2013, featuredexperience-sharing from Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts in how to constructnational networks for legal aid. The fourth workshop, held in Tripoli earlierthis month, refined participants’ knowledge of legal strategies to handle casesand increased their comfort with providing legal aid.

Gabriele Reiter, Regional Director for OMCT, gave theopening address of this fifth and final training: “Now our Libyan friends arefully prepared to document the most grotesque of crimes. But Libya is fast descendinginto a new spiral of violence, and the fight against torture is not exclusivelya legal one. With this final workshop, we hope to inspire Libyan lawyers totake a step back and reflect on their efforts of the past two years, and to comeup with a big-picture vision about how to carry on the fight against torture ina sustainable way.”

This final workshop thus aims to guide the participantstoward a concrete understanding of maintaining a viable program of operation,as well as how to overcome the day-to day constraints they face while fightingtorture in Libya. It is facilitated by Marwan Tashani, Head of the LibyanJudges’ Organization, who has accompanied all five trainings and describes a“world of a difference” from the first training to this last. With thecompletion of this workshop, OMCT will have trained more than 100 Libyanlawyers and human rights defenders on: the proper documentation of torturecases; prison and detention center visitation protocols; monitoring humanrights violations; and, perhaps most significantly, ensuring that Libyan civilsociety and local NGOs possess the necessary vision and expertise to achievetheir long-term goals and to guarantee their continued sustainability.

Over the past two years, the most active participants inthis series of workshops and training seminars have mobilized to create theLibyan Network for Legal Aid (LNLA). The network is a team of lawyers,activists, and jurists trained by OMCT, who began informally monitoring humanrights violations since the very first days of the Libyan revolution and whonow enjoy a solid professional platform. Salahadin Abukhzam, President of theLNLA, said, “OMCT has bestowed on us both the legal expertise and projectmanagement skills to ensure the long-term sustainability of our network.”

At this critical moment in Libya, OMCT trusts that the 100legal professionals trained through this series will have an outsized effect instabilizing the country and restoring the rule of law, with view to a future inwhich all Libyans can live peacefully and exercise their basic rights. The joint IRCT-OMCT project is financially supported by the European Union.

For more information, contact Daniel Davis at +216 52 62 30 35