At the United Nations, the U.N. Human Rights Council held a session Thursday on a commission of inquiry’s findings of war crimes by the Muammar Gaddafi regime. The head of the panel, Cherif Bassiouni, said Gaddafi’s forces have committed multiple violations of international law.

Cherif Bassiouni: “There have been acts constituting murder, unlawful imprisonment, other forms of severe violations of fundamental rules of international law, such as torture, persecution, enforced disappearances, that were committed by government forces and by their supporters as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, with the knowledge that the attack was directed against part of the Libyan population. Such acts fall within the meaning of crimes against humanity.”

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, backed the panel’s findings.

Navi Pillay: “In my view, this is nothing more than a government waging a war on its own people, people who are asking for fundamental human rights that are accepted in most democratic countries, and they should be responding to those calls for ending corruption and for a greater say in government and for full rights.”