Russia prevents a UN Security Council committee from including the "Kaniyat" militia on the blacklist of human rights violations.

New York, November 21, 2020 (Lana) - Russia prevented, on Friday, a UN Security Council committee from including the "Kaniyat" militia and its leader, Mohamed Alkani, on the blacklist of human rights violations, under the pretext that it wanted to see more evidence first of their killing civilians. According to the Reuters news agency that reported the news, the United States and Germany proposed that the Libya Sanctions Committee, which includes 15 members of the Security Council, impose an asset freeze and a travel ban on the Kaniyat militia and its leader, Muhammad Alkani. In their sanctions proposal, the United States and Germany said that international human rights groups and the UN political mission in Libya, known as the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, "had received reports of hundreds of human rights violations committed by the Kaniyat militia against individuals, government officials, prisoners and civil activists in Tarhuna. It was reported that the Kaniyat militia under the leadership of Muhammad Alkani committed enforced disappearances, torture and murder, and the United Nations Support Mission in Libya verified that the Kaniyat militia committed several executions in Tarhuna prison on September 13, 2019. Such a move must be approved unanimously, but Russia has said it cannot agree to it. "Our support in the future is possible, but it is conditional on providing conclusive evidence of their involvement in killing civilians," a Russian diplomat told his colleagues on the Security Council in a note reviewed by Reuters. Reuters indicated that the Libyan city of Tarhuna, which was retaken by the Government of National Accord last June, was under the control of the Kaniyat militia run by the local Alkani family, which fought alongside Khalifa Haftar. Last month, the Libyan authorities exhumed 12 bodies from four other unidentified graves in Tarhuna, to be added to the dozens of bodies that have already been discovered since June. =Lana=