By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 28 February 2013:
Former inmates of Abu Selim prison gathered there this morning, Thursday, to commemorate the second anniversary . . .[restrict]of the 17th February Revolution.
In a ceremony in the prison’s infamous courtyard where some 1,270 prisoners were murdered by the prison guards 17 years ago, they heard the head of the General National Congress, Mohamed Magarief, say that the place had witnessed some of the harshest and worst suffering in Libya in over four decades. It was, however, all the more reason for the pride in the victory over injustice and tyranny.
“This place reminds us of what our heroes have suffered”, Mohamed Magarief added,
Abu Selim Prison was the site of the notorious 29 June 1996 massacre carried out by the military police on the instructions of intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi. He ordered them to kill an estimated 1,270 prisoners, among them Islamists as well as other political opponents.
The prison became particularly associated with the Libyan revolution through the arrest in Benghazi by the Qaddafi regime of the lawyer and human rights activist Fathi Terbil who had represented the association families of Abu Selim martyrs. His arrest sparked a protest in the city on 15 February 2011 — and the rest is history.
Today’s Abu Selim commemoration was attended a number of government ministers as well as foreign ambassadors and diplomats. [/restrict]
