Greater intensity urged on NATO against human rights abuser

Another time and place. Is there a difference?

In an effort to keep back-slider Turkey on the straight and narrow now that the "honourable men" of Africa have muddied the waters with the toilet paper they have called a peace plan, Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister said on France Info radio:

"NATO must play its role fully. It wanted to take the lead in operations, we accepted that. It must play its role today which means preventing that Gaddafi uses heavy weapons to bomb populations."

This was further underlined late in the day by British Foreign Secretary William Hague on arrival at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg:

'We must maintain and intensify our efforts in NATO. That is why the United Kingdom has in the last weeks supplied additional aircraft capable of striking ground targets threatening the civilian population ... of course it would be welcome if other countries also did the same."

Are you listening Turkey?

It is well known that human rights is a cloudy issue in the land of the Ottomans, but perhaps, this time Ankara just might listen to the above and the following.

Captured rebel Libyan fighters have been found shot in the head with their hands tied behind their backs, Amnesty International said, adding it has strong evidence of other human rights abuses. Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had also deliberately killed unarmed protesters and attacked civilians fleeing fighting, Amnesty said, citing evidence gathered by its delegates in eastern Libya over the past six weeks.

The rights group said Gaddafi's troops appeared to have executed captured rebel fighters close to the town of Ajdabiyah. Its researchers in eastern Libya had in recent days seen the bodies of two opposition fighters who had been shot in the back of the head after their hands had been bound behind their backs.

Amnesty said it had received credible reports of four similar cases, where bodies of captured fighters were reportedly found with their hands tied behind their backs and multiple gunshot wounds to the upper parts of their bodies. Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:

"The circumstances of these killings strongly suggest that they were carried out by the forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi."