On 22 November 2015, 43-year-old Arabic literature professor, Salah Salem Slimane Al Hassi was abducted from his home in Bayda City by members of an armed group loyal to General Khalifa Haftar. According to his family, Al Hassi's abduction took place in retaliation for having taken part in a peaceful demonstration a few days earlier. Al Hassi had joined this political protest in an effort to denounce the human rights violations regularly committed by General Haftar's militias in the city of Bayda, in eastern Libya.