After a month and a half of conflict in Libya, the situation of political prisoners and prisoners of war on both sides is uncertain, and their fundamental rights are at risk. More than 400 people in eastern Libya have gone missing since the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi began on 15 February, according to Human Rights Watch and the Libyan Red Crescent in Benghazi.

Seeing the bombing of Libya only as an exercise in saving civilian lives barely scratches the surface, writes Mahmood Mamdani.

Authorities in Greece say Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi is seeking to negotiate an end to the fighting that has pitted his forces against antigovernment rebels since February. Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on 3 April that at least two of Qaddafi's sons backed a plan to remove their father from power and usher in a transition to a constitutional democracy.

Bodies are lying in the streets of the besieged Libyan city of Misrata and its hospital is overflowing with the injured, an evacuee has said after arriving in Tunisia. Misrata is the only big rebel stronghold left in western Libya and has been under attack for weeks by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. Accounts from Misrata cannot be independently verified because Libyan authorities are not allowing journalists to report freely from the city.

The Libyan government should immediately comply with the first binding ruling against a state by the newly operational African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Egyptian Initiative on Personal Rights (EIPR), Human Rights Watch, and Interights said. In its pioneering decision, issued on 25 March and published on 30 March, the court unanimously ordered Libya to end any actions that would cause the loss of life or violation of anyone’s 'physical integrity' in violation of international human rights law.

African Union (AU) Commission chairman Jean Ping will be travelling to Europe to discuss the Libyan crisis with the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Before his departure from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Dr Ping said the AU’s position on Libya remains unchanged. He added that the bloc would seek a solution based on its proposed roadmap. AU is opposed to the Western military action against Libya.

The ‘public narrative of an “Arab Spring” excludes much of the world's population both from public attention and concern and from discussion of what meaningful political change might look like and how it can be supported by people in other places,’ argues Oliver Kearns.

Three African nations voted for the UN Security Council resolution that opened the door to the Western military intervention in Libya. Demba Moussa Dembele regrets that South Africa, Gabon and Nigeria provided the votes for the resolution to be passed.

'When we listen to our leaders' vigorous condemnations of the human rights abuses and lack of democracy of Qaddafi's and other authoritarian regimes in the Mediterranean we would do well to bear in mind how new-founded and limited is their concern for human rights, and how likely it is that they will try to co-opt any new governments in the region to their war against sub-Saharan migrants,' argues a leading human rights lawyer on the website of the Institute of Race Relations. 'For in the past decade, as well as cheerfully returning dozens of suspected Islamists to torture under cover of the flimsiest of diplomatic assurances, Britain and Europe have used Qaddafi and other repressive north African regimes as front men for policies causing thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean and beyond.'

This Al Jazeera video clip covers the first days of the uprising Benghazi. New footage has emerged from this period showing gunmen – who appear to be Gaddafi loyalists – shooting unarmed protesters dead. With armed men dragging people from Benghazi’s mosque, others were left to die on the streets.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has expressed its deep concern about the case of Ms. Iman Al-Obaidi, a lawyer, from Benghazi. On Saturday 25 March 2011, Ms. Iman Al-Obaidi declared in the presence of journalists that she had been beaten and raped by security forces agents in Tripoli. She reported that other women who may still be in detention were also victims of rape. Ms Al-Obaidi showed the journalists marks of injury. While she was testifying in Hotel Rixos, Tripoli, Ms. Al-Obaidi was forced into a car and driven away.

Drawing upon a range of online reflections and social media activity, Sokari Ekine underlines the high stakes and contested understandings around the ongoing crises in Côte d’Ivoire and Libya and Egypt’s ‘post-revolution’ experience.

Libyan rebels' push westwards towards Tripoli gathered momentum on Sunday as their pursuit of Muammar Gaddafi's forces saw them wrest back control of key oil town Ras Lanuf. Their next target is Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, a central coastal city, and on the way they captured Bin Jawad, a hamlet 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Ras Lanuf, AFP correspondents reported.

Unless Libyans themselves own the struggle against Gaddafi, opponents to his regime may find that even if he has been removed from power, ‘Gaddafism’ will continue – but this time propped up by the West, Horace Campbell warns.

Fighting in eastern Libya between pro-government and opposition forces has left thousands of Libyans internally displaced in recent days. Libyans arriving at Egypt's Sallum border crossing said civilians had been seeking shelter with host families as well as in schools and university buildings.

The ‘people of Libya deserve all our sympathy – for having been obliged to endure the calamitous rule of a man, apparently destined to inflict so much suffering on them,’ writes Cameron Duodu.

Bloggers across the continent are dissatisfied, dismayed and disappointed by the Africa Union’s handling of the crises in Libya and in Côte d'Ivoire, writes Dibussi Tande.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has said the killing of Mohammad 'Mo' Nabbous in the city of Benghazi highlights the increasing risks to the safety of journalists covering the Libyan conflict.
Nabbous, who ran the Voice of Libya channel (Libya al-Hurra), died on Saturday during the attack of forces loyal to Colonel Moammar Gaddafi on Benghazi. The IFJ is also concerned over reports that staff of the AFP news agency and the international broadcaster Aljazeera are missing or in detention. Nabbous became the second journalist killed in Libya after the murder of Aljazeera cameraman Ali Hassan Al Jaber who was shot dead by unknown attackers while returning to Benghazi from reporting on an opposition protest.

The Libyan government should release all Libyan and foreign journalists detained because of their reporting and allow them to cover the crisis in Libya freely, Human Rights Watch has said. Since anti-government protests began in Libya on 15 February 2011, the government has harassed, detained, and beaten journalists trying to cover the story. A Libyan journalist and a Qatari cameraman have been killed by gunfire in unclear circumstances.

As the West intervenes in the Libyan crisis, the Afreeka in Unity group demands ‘the immediate end of the imperialist invasion in the African country of Libya’.