WUNRN
Libya:
Wake Up, Benghazi! - VIDEO
BY
Cameron Hickey and Zainab Salb | Jun. 7, 2015
On
June 25, 2014, Salwa Bugaighis was shot dead in her home by unknown militants,
marking a new milestone in the countrys descent towards anarchy: The first
female political assassination.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/world/middleeast/libya-trials-of-spring.html
Libya - The Brutal Silencing of a Woman at the Forefront of
Libyas Rebellion
JUNE 7, 2015
Scores or
perhaps hundreds of killings remain unsolved in Benghazi, Libya, since the ouster of Col.
Muammar el-Qaddafi nearly four years ago. But no victim has symbolized the
crushed hopes of the Libyan uprising more than Salwa Bugaighis.
Ms.
Bugaighis, an outspoken human rights lawyer, was among the revolts first and
most important leaders, and she was also the most prominent woman in the rebels
early provisional government.
Colonel
Qaddafi, in his bizarre style, had opened opportunities for women in ways that
few other Arab strongmen ever did. It is an undisputed fact that both man and
woman are human beings, Colonel Qaddafi wrote in the
Green Book, his magnum opus of philosophical musings. He expanded womens
education, sharply reduced illiteracy among women, enabled women to enter new professions,
and conspicuously included uniformed women in both the army and the police.
But Libyan
culture remained deeply conservative, especially in the towns and villages,
where women and men rarely mix outside their families. Nearly every Libyan
woman wears some sort of Islamic head covering.
Ms.
Bugaighis was one of the few who did not. Raised in Britain as the daughter of
a dissident in exile, she believed the uprising of 2011 could usher in not only
a new democracy but also expanded individual freedoms, including for women.
Instead,
Libya began breaking down almost immediately into a patchwork of city-states
dominated by various regional, ideological or criminal armed groups, spreading
violence and lawlessness around the country.
Ms. Bugaighis opposed the militias who aligned with political Islam, and
also the ambitious general who declared a coup and went to war against them. By
the spring of 2014, she and her family had left Benghazi after an assassination
attempt nearly killed her son. But she risked returning home to cast her ballot
in elections held that June and urged others to do the same.
My people,
I beg of you, there are only three hours left, she wrote
on Facebook at about 5:45 p.m. on Election Day, warning Libyans that the
polls would soon close.
She was killed in her home stabbed and shot later that night, and her
death marked a turning point from bad to worse for Libya.
The
Parliament chosen in that election was irreconcilably divided and the political
process in Libya broke down completely. Militias have organized against one
another in a
civil conflict that for the last nine months has crippled the country and
killed thousands. The murder of Ms. Bugaighis remains unsolved; her husband
also disappeared the night she was killed, and his whereabouts is unknown.
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Subject: Libya - Salwa Bugaighis, Libyan Human Rights Activist, Shot
Dead in Benghazi
WUNRN
Libya - Salwa Bugaighis, Libyan Human Rights Activist, Shot Dead in Benghazi
The woman lawyer who took part in the Libya Revolution that overthrew Gaddafi, was killed on the same day she voted in Libya's general election.
Agence France-Presse in Benghazi
Salwa Bugaighis. Photograph: /National Dialogue
Preparatory Commission of Libya
26 June 2014 - The Libyan human rights
activist Salwa Bugaighis has been shot dead by unknown assailants at her home
in Benghazi on the day of the country's general election.
"Unknown hooded men wearing military
uniforms attacked Mrs Bugaighis in her home and opened fire on her," said
a security official, who did not wish to be named.
She was shot several times and taken to
hospital in critical condition, where she died shortly afterwards, a spokesman
for the Benghazi medical centre said.
Her husband, who was in the family home at
the time of the attack, had since been reported as missing, a family member
said. "We've lost touch with him," the relative said, adding that a
security guard at the house had been shot and injured.
Bugaighis, a lawyer, played an active part
in Libya's 2011 revolution, which overthrew the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. A
former member of the National Transitional Council, the rebellion's political
wing, she was vice-president of a preparatory committee for national dialogue
in Libya.
The US ambassador to Libya, Deborah Jones
called the news "heartbreaking", and on her Twitter account denounced
"a cowardly, despicable, shameful act against a courageous woman and true
Libyan patriot".
Earlier on Wednesday Bugaighis had
participated in Libya's general election. She published photos of herself at a
polling station on her Facebook page.
Since the 2011 revolution the east of Libya
and in particular the country's second city of Benghazi has been a
stronghold for jihadists, and the scene of attacks and assassinations targeting
notably the military, police and judges.
At least three soldiers deployed to provide
polling day security in Benghazi were killed in what security officials said
was an attack on their convoy by Islamist militia.
Benghazi, which was the scene of a deadly
attack on the US consulate in 2012, has been tense since a rogue former rebel
commander launched an offensive in May against powerful Islamist groups,
drawing many regular army units to his side.