UN Right Boss Demands Action To Halt Libya Crisis

UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has denounced mass killings by Libyan forces using tanks and helicopters and called on the international community to stop the bloodshed.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Pillay said this while addressing an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council convened in Geneva to examine the grave situation in the North African country, whose leader Muammar Gaddafi is clinging to power.

She said that thousands of people might have been killed or injured in the mounting violence against anti-government protesters, many by shots to the head or chest.

"In brazen and continuing breach of international law, the crackdown in Libya on peaceful demonstrations is escalating alarmingly with reported mass killings, arbitrary arrests, detention and torture of protesters.”

"Tanks, helicopters and military aircraft have reportedly been used indiscriminately to attack the protesters," Pillay told the forum.

Other reactions

Western powers including the US and France are pushing to have Libya's membership of the 47 -member state forum put under challenge at the special session.

But Arab and African states are expected to resist the call at the one-day session, fearing it will set a precedent, according to diplomats.

No Libyan delegation was present at the talks.

REUTERS/Williams