AI Blasts Gaddafi Over Refugee Rights

The humanitarian group Amnesty International (AI) has slammed Tripoli's treatment of African migrants on the eve of a historic visit to Italy by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The organisation points out that its delegation visited a detention centre in northwestern Libya, where hundreds of non-Libyan citizens, most coming from Eritrea but also from Somalia, Nigeria and Mali, are held in conditions of serious overcrowding.

Calling on Italian leaders to insist on human rights "guarantees" from Tripoli, the organisation also blasted Rome for a controversial policy it began implementing last month under which hundreds of boat people intercepted in the Mediterranean were returned to Libya from where they set out.

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