By Maha Ellawati.
Benghazi, 23 October:
Dozens of journalists along with local residents in Benghazi gather late Monday afternoon in Shajara Square to . . .[restrict]condemn Sunday’s attack on Libya Alhura TV station.
The station was ransacked by a group which accused it of broadcasting misleading news about events in Bani-Walid.
Monday’s protestors said the assault of Libya Alhura channel was an attack on the revolution itself. Demonstrators carried aloft pictures of Mohamed Nabbus, the channel’s founder who was killed in March last year.
One of the channel’s main reporters called Sunday’s event an attack on free media. “We’ve only shown what was happening on the ground”, said Zuhair Al-Barasi.
Regretting that such an incident could have happened to the free media in Libya, political analyst Zahi Mghairbi said that events in Bani-Walid were not its fault in any way. The media was merely informing people. It was not trying to distort or hide the facts.
After years of disinformation and fake media when Libyans had not freedom of information, the new Libyan media was one of the solid results of the revolution, he said. Such attacks, he added, would harm Libya and hinder the reconstruction process. [/restrict]