I take two small steps in and then stop dead in my tracks, overwhelmed by the two hundred or so pairs of eyes that peer back at me.
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Suddenly, the scarf I'm wearing over my head doesn't feel like it's covering enough, the coat
I'm wearing isn't long enough and I can't hide enough behind my camera. I'm feeling a little vulnerable.
It gets worse when we move on to another area of the prison where the doorways to cells are unbarred and inmates are walking freely in the corridors.
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“Don't speak Arabic,” local producer Osama Al Fitori says as he quickly follows me in.
“They will crowd you and we won't be able to control the situation.” He's right.
Osama acts as a buffer between the inmates and I, translating and engaging with the prisoners as I film.
A big burly man seeks me out. He speaks a little bit of English and he's desperate to tell his story.
He was the bodyguard of Seif Gaddafi, the son of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
“I need justice. Now no justice,” he tells me in English.
Then he turns to Osama and starts pouring his story out in Arabic.
At that point, I wish that he knew I could understand him.
What he says is familiar to many of the other inmates here.
Ahmad Smeda has been detained without charge for months. Others here have been imprisoned without even being questioned.
They may be some of the luckier ones.
After the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, there was a severe backlash against his supporters.
Reports of torture and abuse by rebels against perceived loyalists in makeshift prisons outside the control of the interim government are widespread.
It got so bad, that Medecins Sans Frontieres withdrew its operations from Misrata, saying they were treating prisoners in between interrogations to keep them alive for more torture.
The authorities and rebel commanders concede there is a problem. That sort of accountability is more than what can be said of the Libya under Gaddafi.
It's perhaps a promising sign for a nation only seven months out of war, but there's still a long way to go.
