Less than two weeks after Hosni Mubarak stepped down as president of Egypt following weeks of protest in Cairo and other cities, unrest has spread throughout the Middle East and the call for Revolution is stronger than ever. This is no more evident than in the nearby Middle Eastern country of Libya, where protests began last week but remained relatively invisible to the Western Media until this weekend. The violence is rising and these protests are becoming riots as the Libyan people cry for freedom and human rights.
“If the Libyan protesters are ignored, the fear is that [Libyan dictator Muammar] Qaddafi— a man who appears to care little what the rest of the world thinks of him—will be able to seal the country off from foreign observers, and ruthlessly crush any uprising before it even has a chance to begin,” reported Libyan protester Najla Aburraham to MSNBC.
This was last week, and at that point, more than 200 protesters, including women and children, had already been slaughtered. Aburraham’s fears are incredibly real and incredibly relevant. The Libyans have lived in fear for 42 years under Qaddafi’s tyrannical regime, unable to speak out. Corruption is rampant, dissenters are brutally suppressed, and freedom of the press is essentially non-existent. The Libyans were inspired by the uprisings throughout the Muslim world, but quickly after they began, Qaddafi called for the military to intervene. For the past week, pro-Qaddafi militias and police forces have been fighting off protestors and firing into rioting crowds in Libya’s largest cities, including the capitol of Tripoli where thousands of protesters joined together in the city’s main square.
“What we are witnessing today is unimaginable. Warplanes and helicopters are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead,” Adel Mohamed Saleh, an activist in the capital said in a live broadcast to Al Jazeera television, the most comprehensive source of coverage in Libya.
Though the death count that has been release remains ambiguously between 200 and 800, according to Mother Jones magazine, the Libyan government has sought to impose an information blackout, blocking the Internet and satellite television and forbidding foreign journalists from entering, limiting widespread information. However, activists within the country are releasing information when able and some are speculating that the death count may be in the thousands. The violence is escalating as the Libyan people fight for their freedom or die as martyrs.
“We are seeing wounds produced by weapons that I don’t think have been used against human beings before,” head of the Libyan doctors said early Tuesday morning.
The doctor’s shocking revelation is just one of the thousands being released from Libya at this time. It is a shocking moment for the world. Some believe that Qaddafi will unable to keep up this regime or even sustain his life if things continue this way. Qaddafi’s military has been bombing protesters in the country’s capital since early Monday.
“These really seem to be last, desperate acts. If you’re bombing your own capital, it’s really hard to see how you can survive, ” Julien Barnes-Dacey, Control Risks’ Middle East analyst said, according to MSNBC.
As information comes in on Wednesday morning, it appears as though more and more Libyan cities are breaking from Qaddafi’s regime, but only time will tell if this will lead to Qaddafi’s ultimate downfall and freedom for the Lybian people. Stay informed.
