Libya protests: Death toll mounts as unrest spreads

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  • xman
    Admin
    • Sep 2006
    • 24007

    Libya protests: Death toll mounts as unrest spreads

    Rights groups say there is a rising death toll from clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces in Libya. Amnesty said 43 people had died in protests on Thursday, while other reports suggested dozens more were killed on Friday.

    The government has blocked websites and shut off electricity in some areas.

    State media outlets have warned of retaliation against anyone criticising Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

    The mainstay of the unrest is in regional towns and cities, where many people live in poverty.

    Foreign journalists operate under restrictions in Libya, so it has been difficult to independently verify much of the information coming out of the country.

    But the BBC has confirmed that several websites - including Facebook and al-Jazeera Arabic - have been blocked.

    And the airport in Benghazi, the country's second largest city, has been closed, amid reports that protesters have taken it over.
    Lynching claim

    In a statement on its website Amnesty quotes sources at al-Jala hospital in Benghazi as saying 28 people died on Thursday, with the most common injuries being bullet wounds to the head, chest and neck.

    Amnesty said Libya had to rein in its security forces.

    The AP news agency, citing a doctor at the hospital, reported that 35 bodies were brought in on Friday afternoon after an attempted protest outside the residential compound used by Colonel Gaddafi when he visits Benghazi.

    The source said survivors had told him that security forces inside the compound fired on the protesters.

    Residents in Benghazi say that electricity has been cut off in some areas, and tanks are posted outside the court building.

    One protester told the BBC that the army had fired on protesters in some areas of the city, but soldiers had switched sides in other areas and joined the demonstrations.

    'The soldiers say we are citizens of this country and we cannot fight our citizens. We respect our people, we don't need to fight them,' he said.

    Several reports from the area in recent days have claimed that local soldiers have sided with protesters against national security forces.

    Meanwhile, dissidents based outside Libya claimed that protesters were now battling security forces for control of another eastern city, al-Bayda.

    Video footage from al-Bayda showed bloodstained bodies in a mortuary, and protesters torching a municipal building and demolishing a statue of the so-called 'green book' - the collection of principles by which Col Gaddafi rules.

    Amnesty said 15 people had died in clashes in al-Bayda on Thursday.

    The Oea newspaper, owned by one of Col Gaddafi's sons, earlier reported that demonstrators had lynched two policemen in the city.

    Oea also reported outbreaks of violence in Darnah, east of al-Bayda, where it described residents as living in fear.

    It said all police stations in Darnah had been evacuated after protesters were killed on Thursday, and rumours were circulating that elite military units were closing in on the city.
    'Red lines'

    Amid the crackdown, the semi-independent Quryna newspaper reported that the government would replace many state executives and decentralise and restructure the government.

    It was unclear whether the political move was in response to growing unrest.

    Earlier, the pro-government Al-Zahf Al-Akhdar newspaper threatened to 'violently and thunderously respond' to the protests.

    'The people's power, the Jamahiriya [system of rule], the revolution, and Colonel Gaddafi are all red lines and those who try to cross or come near these lines are suicidal and playing with fire.'

    Col Gaddafi is the Arab world's longest-serving leader, having ruled oil-rich Libya since a coup in 1969.





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