Muammar el-Qaddafi’s son and supposed heir, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, is being detained by a rebel militia outside of the Libyan capital, said American human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, who was given access to him.

They said that Qaddafi’s son was forbidden access to legal counsel while he awaited trial for crimes against humanity. There is no set date for the trial, and it is unknown whether he will be tried in Libya, where the justice system is still in disorder, or if he will be tried by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The International Criminal Court had issued a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Qaddafi in June, but Libyan authorities want him to be tried in their country.

Fred Abrahams, a Human Rights Watch representative, visited Mr. Qaddafi for about 30 minutes in private on Sunday in a town called Zintan. He has been held there since his capture on November 19. The representative claimed that Mr. Qaddafi was being treated well in his captivity, though he did say he was completely isolated from his family and was not allowed to see a lawyer. “The new Libya should be about giving prisoners and detainees their rights,” Mr. Abrahams stated. “They should give him the rights that his father denied to Libyans for so long. That would be a legal and moral victory for the new Libyan authorities, to say, ‘We will not behave like you.’ ”

After rumors circulated about how the Zintan fighters were treating their captive, the office of the general prosecutor in Tripoli gave Human Rights Watch leave to see Mr. Qaddafi. Abrahams said the arrangement was a reflection of the current situation in Libya and how it is changing. “It is not accurate to say he is being held by a militia outside of government control, although it is not true that he is in a prison directly controlled by the government either,” the representative said.

Human rights activists said the 8,000 prisoners that have been accused of fighting for the Qaddafi government have no set trial dates or access to lawyers. “The authorities think they can be held there and just wait forever,” said Nasser Jerrari, director of the Hope Association, a local rights organization. “There are many innocent people in jail as well.”

Rebel militias have become influential and powerful in postwar Libya, and the rebels from Zintan are among the most powerful. The Zintan fighters also protect and maintain the Tripoli International Airport. Tuesday was the deadline for the militias to leave Tripoli, but few obeyed. The commander of the Zintan fighters at the airport, Mokhtar al-Akhdar, maintained that postwar Libya was still fragile. “If the government has good people to secure the airport, then we will hand it over, and go home,” he stated. “But they cannot even control the border with Tunisia. If we give the government the airport, they will destroy it.”

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The international organization Human Rights Watch released a report on Thursday, December 15, concerning violations and abuses in Syria committed by security forces since the beginning of anti-government protests and demonstrations in March 2011.

The 94-pages report called “By All Means Necessary!” is the result of the investigations conducted independently by Human Rights Watch in Syria, and it is based on statements of hundreds of victims and witnesses. In particular, it focuses on the violence and killings that occurred between April and August 2011, in seven of Syria’s fourteen governorates: Damascus, Daraa, Homs, Idlib, Tartous, Deir al-Zor, and Hama.

Sixty-three defectors, both from the army and the intelligence agencies, were interviewed separately and accurately. They provided detailed information and reports on the violations, the abuses, and the orders they received from commanders of the Syrian army at any level for repressive actions, violence, and attacks on civilian protesters.

The orders were to stop the protests “by all means necessary”. The people who were interviewed had firsthand knowledge of the violations. Their statements provide accounts and evidence of the systematic abuse on civilians and of the responsibility of the government forces for these abuses.

Anna Neistat, an associate director for emergencies at Human Rights Watch who participated directly in the investigations for the report, said and wrote to CNN, “But responsibility for these crimes does not stop with the commanders on the ground.

Under international criminal law, al-Assad, as commander in chief of all forces in Syria, bears responsibility for the most serious crimes committed by his forces – even if he did not order them – to the extent that he knew, or should have known, about the abuses and failed to prevent them.”

A quote from the report reads, “Human Rights Watch’s findings show that military commanders and officials in the intelligence agencies gave both direct and standing orders to use lethal force against the protesters (at least 20 such cases are documented in detail in this report) as well as to unlawfully arrest, beat, and torture the detainees.

In addition, senior military commanders and high-ranking officials, including President Bashar al-Assad and the heads of the intelligence agencies, bear command responsibility for violations committed by their subordinates to the extent that they knew, or should have known, of the abuses, but failed to take action to stop them.

Given the widespread public and international criticism of the abuses, it would be incredible for al-Assad to argue that he did not know.” Hence, what comes out from this report is the commitment and the responsibility of the Syrian regime, and its president, in crimes against humanity during the crackdown of the anti-government protests.

The non-involvement and non-responsibility claims of President Bashar Al-Assad were demolished by the witnesses’ accounts and statements documented in the report of Human Rights Watch.

Moreover, the claims of Syrian authorities about the violations and the violence having been committed and organized by armed terrorist gangs that were “incited and sponsored from abroad” and by foreign countries, crumble in view of what has been reported and documented. During the nine-month crackdown, the number of victims is estimated around 5,000 people, of whom at least 300 were children.

Despite the sanctions imposed recently by the Arab League on Syria and the increasing isolation of the country, the violence and the abuses did not stop, and there seems to be no change in the regime’s police. Maybe the worst has yet to come.

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