September 9th, 2011
Mohamed Ahmed Ali, a 54-year-old teacher, said he was arrested on May 20, after he was overheard criticizing Gaddafi. “I was taken to the Chinese company. It was the worst possible treatment,” he said. “As soon as I arrived they used no words, they just started beating me.”
According to Ali, the soldiers used whips and batons that inflicted an electric shock. On September 7, he showed Human Rights Watch the extensive scars on his back from the beatings. He also explained how many of his fellow detainees suffocated to death:
At 11 p.m. [on June 5] they opened the container and put in some food and closed the door. At 4 a.m. we felt it was about 30 degrees [centigrade] in the container. We knew the coming day would not be normal. We prayed to Allah to lessen our suffering. We had 1.5 liters of water for 19 people… By 9 a.m. it was really hot. Our clothes were drenched, I could wring out my shirt. At 11 a.m. people started passing out. I took a broom stick and hit the container from inside saying: “We’re Muslims, we’re Libyans, we’re brothers.” But they just insulted us, called us “rats.”
Ali said he lost consciousness around noon. “Finally they opened it,” he said. “Nine of the 19 were dead. We later heard that in the container next to us nine of the 10 had died.”
Mohamed Ahmed Ali shows the scars he sustained from torture while detained in the container where 10 detainees suffocated to death at the abandoned Chinese company.
© 2011 Daniel Etter
