He spoke at the rally held in Tahrir Square Friday to commemorate the fallen in the Egyptian Revolution that toppled Mubarak, before a crowd of some two million…
Don’t fight history, he told them. You can’t delay the day when it starts. The Arab world has changed.
The thugs ruling in Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen, and especially Libya failed to heed the wise cleric’s words…
At least 173 protesters have already been killed in less than a week by the Libyan security forces, and that may be a conservative estimate. Some residents of Benghazi claim that more than 200 have been killed in their city alone...
The guide of the First September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, as Muammar Gaddafi is officially called, has obviously no intention of following in the footsteps of Mubarak and Ben Ali.
Incidentally, the guide berated the Tunisians for having evicted their president.
You have suffered a great loss, he also added. There is none better than Zine (Ben Ali) to govern Tunisia. I do not only hope that he stays until 2014, but for life…
Inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, Libyan activists had called for a Libyan Day of Rage on Thursday, February 17.
On this day five years ago, twelve demonstrators were killed by the regime’s security forces.
Yet, the Libyan uprising began earlier than anticipated.
On Tuesday, a prominent Libyan lawyer and human rights activist, Fathi Terbil, was arrested. He has been representing the families of the 1,200 activists killed in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, in 1996.
These political opponents of the regime were then buried in secret mass graves.
Terbil, on behalf of the families, has been demanding that the regime explain the reasons for the massacre and indicate the place of burial of the victims.
When news of the lawyer’s arrest spread, relatives of the 1996 victims gathered in front of the police headquarters in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, one thousand kilometers east of the capital.
Soon, hundreds then thousands of citizens of Benghazi joined them.
The lawyer was released but the gathering turned into a mass demonstration against the regime. Rise up, oh Benghazi, the day you have been waiting for has come;
There is no god but God and Muammar (Gaddafi) is the enemy of God;
The people want the regime to fall, they chanted.
The writer Idris al-Mesmari, contacted by Aljazeera, told the network that the security forces were attacking the crowd. He was arrested shortly after the interview…
Though Libya possesses the largest oil reserves in Africa, it remains a country wracked by poverty and unemployment. Two-thirds of Libya’s 6.5 million inhabitants live on less than $2 a day, and 30% are jobless.
Yet, they have other demands reminiscent of those of their neighbors: freedom, democracy, justice, and an end to their despotic and corrupt regime.
The government announced that it would double the salaries of civil servants and release 110 political prisoners in an attempt to assuage the wrath of the demonstrators.
Sensing that this may be the time to rid the nation at last of Muammar Gaddafi, who has held absolute power since 1969, Libyans have been demonstrating for nearly one week.
Rise up Libyan women! You are half of the society. Bring your husbands and sons out, one woman from Tripoli, urged on a video.
On Thursday, the Day of Rage, protests erupted in eastern Libya, in the cities of Benghazi, Al Beyda, Zentan, Derna and Ajdabiya.
The east of the country, more hostile to Gaddafi, has long been neglected by the regime.
There were few signs of disturbance in the capital.
The regime had warned its opponents not to openly confront it, or rue the day that it did so. From Libya’s youth to anyone who dares to cross any of the four red lines, come and face us in any street on the ground of our beloved country, a widely disseminated SMS warned. The four red lines referred to Islamic law, the Quran, Libyan security forces and Gaddafi himself.
Yet, thousands demonstrated nevertheless.
What is astonishing is the bravery of the Libyans, who are running a great risk of disappearance and torture, Heba Morayef, of Human Rights Watch, declared.
The security apparatus responded ruthlessly.
According to multiple witnesses, Libyan security forces shot and killed the demonstrators in efforts to disperse the protests, Human Rights Watch stated.
In addition, there are reports that the authorities refused access to medical assistance to those demonstrators in dire need of it, and prevented ambulances from reaching the victims.
By Friday, the death toll had reached 84.
A doctor in Benghazi, Wuwufaq al-Zuwail, told Aljazeera that, on Friday, scores of bodies had been brought to his ward.
I have seen it on my own eyes. At least 70 bodies at the hospital.
Ahmed, a resident of Benghazi told Aljazeera that it’s a big, big massacre. We’ve never heard of anything like this before. It’s horrible. The shooting is still taking place right now. We’re about three kilometers away from it, and we saw this morning army troops coming into the city. You can hear the shooting now. They don’t care about us, he declared on Saturday.
Also on Saturday, the security forces stormed a makeshift camp erected in front of Benghazi’s courtroom by lawyers and judges.
They fired tear gas on protesters in tents and cleared the areas after many fled carrying the dead and injured, one protester told The Telegraph.
Furthermore, they attacked a funeral procession organized in honor of those killed the day before. Today, it’s a real massacre out there, Braikah, a doctor, told McClatchy.
Many of the dead were shot in the head and chest, the security forces clearly intending to kill them.
Snipers shot protesters, artillery and helicopter gunships were used against crowds of demonstrators, and thugs armed with hammers and swords attacked families in their homes as the Libyan regime sought to crush the uprising, wrote Nick Meo in The Telegraph.
With foreign journalists persona non grata, internet and phone services interrupted, Aljazeera and other foreign news outlets unavailable, the regime is doing its utmost to conceal its brutal crackdown.
In addition, there are reports that it has hired foreign mercenaries to do its dirty work.
In Shahhat, sixteen kilometers east of Al Bayda, two African mercenaries were killed and three others captured
A lot of thugs he’s (Gaddafi) employing are not Arabic speakers. They’re armed to the teeth and only use live ammunition. They don’t ask questions-they just shoot. Buildings and cars have been set on fire here, and the situation is getting worse. The dead and injured are everywhere. The mercenaries shoot from helicopters and from the top of roofs.
They don’t care who they kill, Fatih, 26 and from Benghazi, told The Telegraph.
There are also indications that some in the security forces, appalled at the brutality unleashed on the protesters, have switched sides.
Gaddafi is reacting to the protests with ruthlessness. Tanks are on the streets, and there are running battles between armed killers and protesters. Some of the soldiers have been so disgusted by what is going on that they have swapped sides, Omar, a young Benghazi civil servant, told The Telegraph.
Will the uprising resist this onslaught of vicious violence?
Some believe that the Libyans have no other option but to continue demonstrating come what may.
They’re not going to go back to their homes. If they do, he’ll finish them off. They know the regime very well. There’s no way to go back now. Never, never, an exiled opposition leader Abel al-Majid Mansour, told Anthony Shadid, of the NYT.
That is a facile claim to make from Oslo.
The pro-government Al-Zah al-Akhdar newspaper warned that the government would «violently and thunderously respond» to the protests, and said those opposing the regime risked « suicide », The Guardian reported Saturday evening.
The coming days are bound to be crucial.
Either the brave Libyans pursue their efforts and prevail in spite of the regime’s ruthless tactics, or the latter will succeed in cowing them.
Shall they at one point relent, or die trying and failing to overthrow Gaddafi?
But then, perhaps it is already too late for the dictator...
Reflecting on the events in Egypt, one Tahrir protester said this.
They (the regime) empowered us through their violence; they made us hold on to the dream of freedom even more. We were all walking around with wounds, but we still kept going.
May Gaddafi become the last, ultimate victim of his own brutality…
(the photograph of Muammar Gaddafi was found here)
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire