Jailed Muslim Brotherhood Activists Freed

(Tripoli, Libya) In 1998, Libya arrested 152 members of the Muslim Brotherhood. On Wednesday, 84 were freed.

From ArabNews.com:

Libya yesterday released all 84 jailed members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement who had been held since the late 1990s, official sources said as Tripoli presses on with gradual reforms.

"All the 84 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were released today ... amid celebrations in front of the prison in Tripoli in the presence of their families," an official source said.

"Fifty-five of them have returned home to Benghazi," Libya's second city in the east of the country, added the source, who asked not to be named.

Libya in 1998 arrested 152 members of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2002, two were sentenced to death, 73 to life in prison and 66 were acquitted, while the others were handed 10-year jail sentences.

The condemned, mainly students and academics, were accused of supporting or belonging to Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya Al-Libiya, an Islamist group created in 1979, whose beliefs reflect those of Egypt's banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood.

Banned but tolerated? I think that's comparable to "fake but accurate." Or "partially pregnant."

Nonetheless, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International are taking some credit for pressuring Libya into releasing the men. Others believe that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is trying to improve his image abroad. I'd go with the latter reason for the release of the jailed men. Dictators don't pay any attention to human rights organizations.

Companion post at The Jawa Report.