In a statement issued today top humanitarian organization Human Rights Watch urged the NATO-backed Libyan rebel forces to stop arbitrarily arresting black people and to release everyone being held with only skin color as evidence.
“It’s a dangerous time to be dark-skinned in Tripoli,” noted HRW’s Middle East and North Africa Director Sarah Leah Whitson, urging the rebels to stop arresting people unless they have concrete evidence of wrongdoing.
This seems unlikely, however, as the rebels have made it all but official policy to arrest anyone blacker than usual since they took over Tripoli, rounding up African migrants en masse and accusing them of all being “mercenaries” for the Gadhafi regime.
The Gadhafi regime had indeed courted mercenary fighters from neighboring nations, but oil-rich Libya also has a long history of migrant workers from these same nations, and many of them were unable to flee when the civil war began earlier this year. Now they remain in prison under suspicion, with constant talk of mass executions over their heads.
Ahhhhhh….. Can you smell the "freedom" now?! Seems Obama has opened yet another Pandoras box. You'd have thought the previous idiot would have been a warning sign to someone who's tongue is so well oiled so as to not trip over his multitude of lies.
Or else what? They're going to send in NATO to stop 'em? Ha ha! What a comedy!
Soooooooo….. since Obama went in ostensibly to prevent a massacre of 'Rebels' by Gadhafi, will Obama turn those weapons against the 'Rebels'…… to prevent a massacre?
The hypocrisy is staggering.
I understand the desire to prevent such atrocities but the best way to do that is to lead by example. We re guilty too. The Japanese in WWII ring any bells. It is better to offer advice than to threaten. Although I think advice from America is very threatening these days. I get the feeling we would be better off coming home for a while and working on our moral fabric so we can once again earn the right to offer advice.
Gadhafi didn't mind black people, the rabbles seem to have some prejudice.