By Jamel Adel.
Tripoli, 20 January 2014:
It has emerged that three journalists from Fezzan TV, who were covering Saturday’s seizure of the Tamenhint . . .[restrict]airbase 30 kilometres north east of Sebha by Qaddafi loyalists, were captured and beaten by the attackers.
According to Nabeel Al-Sokni, a presenter with Fezzan TV, the three – cameraman Zeidan Almahdi, presenter Adem Al-Shreef and coordinator Abdallah Abu Abda – were grabbed by the pro-Qaddafi forces while filming at the airbase. He told the Libya Herald that they had been “beaten and tortured” by the attackers, with injuries to their faces and bodies.
He indicated that when the attackers fled the base on Saturday evening, after which Sebha revolutionaries arrived, they took the reporters with them. They were released yesterday evening, he said.
The three have said nothing about the identities of the attackers other than that they were pro-Qaddafi.
Al-Sokni called on media organisations in Libya to work together to ensure that the press could operate freely and not be subject to attacks. [/restrict]
