Libyan foreign minister refutes charges of human rights violations

Paris - On the fourth day of Libya strongman Moamer Gaddafi's visit to France, his foreign minister strenuously denied Friday that Libya practised torture and was guilty of other human rights violations. 'No one can permit himself to give Libya lessons in human rights matters,' Abdel Rahman Shalgham told journalists in Paris. 'There is no torture in Libya.' Gaddafi's first official visit to France has been accompanied by a controversy over his association with terrorism and of alleged human rights violations under his rule, with opposition politicians and even some members of President Nicolas Sarkozy's government criticizing the visit. As a result, Sarkozy and his aides have been at pains to justify the visit on the grounds that it had brought France big business contracts and that Gaddafi had changed and now wanted to be a respectable member of the international community. Shalgham's French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, who is known as a committed human rights campaigner, has been visibly absent from the public events involving Gaddafi. 'If he doesn't want to see us, then we don't want to see him,' the Libyan foreign minister said about Kouchner. On Friday, Gaddafi visited the Versailles Chateau outside the capital. He leaves Paris on Saturday, to travel on to Spain. © 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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Libyan foreign minister refutes charges of human rights violations

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